Dark Dawn (ds o'neill)

by Matt McGuire

  ‘OK. Since you don’t want to tell me anything, Joe, I’ll try to tell you something. What could I know? What could I possibly know about you? About your world? Let me give it a shot.’

  Lynch held the psychologist’s eyes.

  ‘You’re a Catholic. Working-class. Did well at school. Didn’t get on with the teachers though. Authority, you see. Bit too much to say for himself, our Joe. Left school early. Tried to get work. Late seventies. Not a lot of that going. Even less for a Catholic in Belfast. The dice were stacked. The courts. The police. Housing. Jobs. It pissed you off. But you could take it. Discipline, you see. Not easily got to. Sure there was the harassment, the taunting, the abuse. The stop and search. Where you from? Where you going? The Brits. The RUC. Not a bother. Sure, they’re cunts. But you’re Joe Lynch. It doesn’t go away though. Day after day, week after week, month after month. Drip. . drip. . drip. . Then it happens. Or rather something happens. You take a hiding. The police kick your door in. They intern your brother. Your da. Your uncle maybe. Some off-duty soldiers have a go, want to fuck up a Fenian. They put you against a wall, put a gun in your mouth. . ’

  Lynch’s gaze sharpened and began boring into Burton.

  ‘. . was that it, Joe? They put you against a wall? Put a gun in your mouth?’

  Burton paused, letting the memory come washing back up from wherever Lynch had buried it.

  ‘You can probably feel it now — as if it was yesterday. The metal against your teeth. The oily taste in your mouth. Your palms are sweating, just thinking about it.’

  Lynch’s heart thundered in his chest. His hand was still though. It had always been that way. He stared at the man opposite.

  ‘You’ve read the books, Joe. Religion, history, politics. All the talk. All the theories. Theories are all well and good, until they kick in your front door one night. Until they put you up against a wall. Going to blow your fucking Fenian head off. None of the theories mention the taste though, right? That cold steel. The metal. The oil.’

  Burton stopped and took a breath.

  ‘They backed you into a corner. What were you going to do? Sit there and take it? No, not you. Not our Joe. People round here have been sitting taking it for years. Look where that’s got them.’

  Lynch stared at Burton, wondering where he was going to go next. Burton stopped talking, letting the atmosphere cool for a few seconds. He looked away, breaking eye-contact, defusing the tension. Slowly, Lynch’s pulse began to calm.

  ‘That was then, Joe. This is now. Things have changed — or so they tell us. Agreements have been signed. The war is over. Decommissioning? Decommission a gun, sure. But how do you decommission someone’s head? You see, you’re out there, Joe. You’re still out there. You want to know if it’s possible to get back. You’re not even sure what getting back would look like.’

  Dr Burton stopped talking. The two men sat in silence. Lynch looked out the window. The drizzle was thickening, turning to proper rain. He’d get wet on the way home.

  ‘Break Free,’ Joe said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The taste. I looked it up. Break Free oil. It’s gun cleaner.’

  Lynch looked past Burton and out over the grey skyline of Belfast. The room was quiet. Burton waited for the other man to speak.

  Lynch looked up at the clock. ‘Eleven-thirty. Time’s up.’

  He stood up and walked out of the office, leaving Burton on his own, staring out over the rooftops of the city.

  FOUR

  By one o’clock O’Neill and Ward were in the car and about to head back to Musgrave Street. The site foreman and the Polish worker who had discovered the body were already there, waiting to be interviewed.

  O’Neill thought about Laganview. With a murder, the scene was everything. You wanted to know why the body was there. How it got there. Was this the crime scene or the deposition site? If there was a league-table of crime scenes, Laganview would languish somewhere near the bottom. It was an enclosed piece of ground. There were no passers-by, no witnesses. You wanted a house on some leafy street. A house was top of the table. An enclosed space with tons of forensics. Nosy neighbours, a few curtain-twitchers. A house did half the job for you. It asked its own questions. Did the murderer know the victim? Did he force entry? What did he touch?

  It had been four hours and O’Neill still didn’t have a positive ID on the body. Already though, it had become ‘his’ body. The kid’s pockets were empty. No wallet, no keys, no money. O’Neill imagined a robbery gone wrong. Some hood, doing a bit of dealing, gets jumped by a couple of junkies.

  There were two CCTV cameras at Laganview, both outside the fence and well away from the body. Both had been vandalized the week before and hadn’t been fixed. It was convenient.

  Four Scenes of Crime Officers were present, combing over things at a snail’s pace. The white overalls, facemasks and gloves gave Laganview a surreal air — part moon landing, part nuclear clean-up. O’Neill wanted soil samples, footprint casts, cigarette ends. On his sketch of the site he’d marked out the position of the body, possible entrance points and sightlines to all the buildings across the river.

  With Ward in the passenger seat he steered the unmarked Mondeo past a billboard advertising Spender Properties. They were the development company on Laganview. In four hours neither of the armoured Land Rovers had moved. At the back of one stood a female uniform, her hat pulled low over her eyes.

  The officer turned her head and looked at the car. O’Neill did a double take. The cheekbones, the blue eyes, the short ponytail. It was Sam Jennings. They’d been at Police College together. They had got on well. He had only been seeing Catherine for two months. After passing out, Sam was sent to Dungannon. O’Neill went to North Belfast and hadn’t seen her since.

  The jury was still out on female peelers. Some reckoned they were a liability. Good in the office. Good at typing, consoling victims, that kind of stuff. The famous Musgrave Street story was Carol Smith. She was a female uniform attending a call off the Cregagh Road, in East Belfast. Her partner ended up inside the house getting the shit beaten out of him by two guys. Back-up arrived to find her standing outside, pointing at the door, shouting: ‘He’s in there!’ Since then new recruits, men and women, were all Carols, at least until they proved themselves otherwise.

  The last O’Neill heard, Sam had got into a fight in Dungannon one Saturday night. Two of her shift were arresting a guy for Drunk and Disorderly when his three mates piled in to try and liberate him. Sam waded in, getting a black eye and a fractured cheekbone for her trouble. They kept hold of the guy and got his mates a couple of days later from the CCTV. They were all sent down.

  From the back of the Land Rover Sam locked eyes on O’Neill in the Mondeo. She’d heard he had gone to the dark side and ditched his uniform. Jennings had her street face on — mouth set, eyes fixed. She gave nothing away. O’Neill remembered from Police College, Sam had her stare down long before she ever put on a uniform. Almost unnoticeably she flicked her head back, acknowledging O’Neill with the slightest of gestures. O’Neill nodded back, edging the Mondeo between the Land Rovers.

  His mind snapped back to the kid. It was his first body. He’d heard about detectives who had ended up with bodies hanging over them for years. People spoke about being followed. Every dead end in every case became an accusation, like someone picking open an old wound. Cops told themselves it was only a job, that you couldn’t take it personally. That was the theory anyway.

  Outside the car, the rain showed no signs of letting up. Two white vans, UTV Live and BBC Northern Ireland, were parked along the road. Presenters stood under umbrellas, speaking into cameras. ‘Reporting live from the scene. .’ O’Neill wondered what they were saying. If the peelers knew nothing, what could the TV know? Still, it never seemed to stop them.

  The Mondeo waited for a break in the traffic.

  ‘You’re pretty quiet there, Detective,’ Ward said.

  O’Neill sighed. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling abo
ut this one, sir.’

  ‘You’re just hungry,’ Ward said, deadpan.

  ‘I’m serious, sir.’

  ‘You’ve got bad feelings about everything.’

  ‘Have you seen the cases I’ve been pulling lately? I mean, whatever happened to karma?’

  ‘Don’t know her. She sounds nice though.’

  ‘You’ve seen the job. You know what I’m talking about, sir.’

  ‘Listen, Boy George, just keep your eyes on the road. I’ve seen a hell of a lot worse in my time.’

  Ward didn’t let on, but he knew what the younger detective meant. The more time he’d been at Laganview the more he saw its potential to bury O’Neill. Walking round the site, he had begun to wonder if he hadn’t saved Wilson the hassle and written O’Neill’s ticket back to uniform himself.

  Across the road, a 20-foot mural loomed over the car. The red hand of Ulster hung in front of them like a giant stop sign. It was two storeys high and filled the gable end of a council house.

  O’Neill squinted at the blood-red hand, thinking about his da and the story he always told when he was half-cut. The red hand was on the coat-of-arms for the O’Neills, who’d been the ancient Kings of Ulster.

  ‘Let me tell you something, son. We are the descendants. . (hiccup). . the red hand. That’s us. That’s ours. At least it was, before these bastards stole it.’

  Apparently there’d been a contest for the kingship of Ulster. A boat race. The first man to touch Irish soil would claim the place. When they were all 20 yards from shore, one of the O’Neills cut off his right hand and threw it on to land to claim the kingship of Ulster.

  It was a family cliche, rolled out every time his da was blitzed and got sentimental. As a boy O’Neill had thought about the story. Cutting off your hand. It was clever, but also desperate, reeking of something fanatical. ‘Remember that, son,’ his da would slur. ‘We mean something. Do you know what I’m talking about? Are you listening to me?’ By the time he was ten O’Neill felt like he’d heard it a million times.

  ‘Hey. Sleeping beauty,’ Ward interrupted. There was a break in the traffic. ‘Let’s go then.’

  O’Neill slipped it into first and pulled out on to the road, turning towards the station.

  Musgrave Street was more military barracks than police station. Nestled in the city centre, its perimeter wall was three feet thick, made of reinforced concrete, and topped with a high fence of corrugated iron. Bomb-proof. Mortar-proof. You could drive a tank at it and the place wouldn’t flinch.

  The station stood 500 yards from High Street, which covered the old River Farset as it rumbled, unnoticed, below the feet of Belfast shoppers. A 113-foot gothic tower pierced the dark grey sky. Built on slob land, the Albert clock had a four-degree lean, like the ghost of a drunken sailor, looking for one of the hoors who used to ply their trade in the shadow of the clock.

  At Musgrave Street O’Neill and Ward sat in the navy Mondeo, waiting for the gates to open. Inside they parked alongside a white Land Rover. It was adorned with a blue and yellow check band and the Crimestoppers phone number. The side of the Land Rover had several dents and a splash of red paint.

  Doris was on reception as the detectives entered the main building. She was in her fifties, with short blonde hair. Civilian support staff, Doris had been at the station longer than anyone, including the Chief Inspector. Her husband was RUC, a Reservist who’d been shot in the late seventies. He’d survived the bullet, only to go down with cancer a few years later. There was something very Irish about it. Ward had introduced O’Neill to Doris when he first joined CID.

  ‘Most important person in the station. Piss off the Chief Inspector, but you’d better not piss off this woman. There’s nothing goes on round here that she doesn’t know about.’

  Doris told O’Neill not to believe everything he heard. And especially not if it came out of the DI’s mouth.

  Doris spoke up as the two men walked past. ‘DS O’Neill. The Chief Inspector called down.’

  O’Neill and Ward stopped.

  ‘Wanted me to send you up as soon as you came in.’

  O’Neill looked at the DI who shrugged his shoulders. Wilson had called Ward that morning, wanting a report on the scene and to know who the PI was. The DI had cursed as he hung up, harking after the days when you were left to do your job in peace.

  ‘How’d he sound?’ O’Neill asked.

  ‘The usual.’

  O’Neill wasn’t convinced. He knew Wilson didn’t like him and would want to ride him hard over the body. Try and catch him out. The Review Boards were coming up next month and he didn’t want to have to answer questions about why he still didn’t have anyone in custody for Laganview.

  The Chief Inspector’s office was on the third floor, nestled among the rest of Senior Management of B Division. The general consensus was, the less folk on the third floor knew about you, the better. There was an invisible divide running through Musgrave Street. First floor was uniform. The second was CID. The third was management. Each floor thought they were God’s own and harboured suspicions about the ability and integrity of the other two. The third was the worst though. Politicians dressed as peelers. When the shit hits the fan, you made sure you weren’t in the room. The third floor would hang you out to dry as soon as look at you.

  The Chief Inspector was writing behind his large oak desk when O’Neill knocked and was summoned. Wilson’s office was the same size as CID, which housed six desks. The Chief Inspector was slim and neatly dressed. He wore a shirt and tie, his shoulder-boards showing three silver diamonds denoting his rank. He didn’t look up when O’Neill entered, but continued writing. O’Neill made to speak, only for Wilson to hold up a finger and cut him off.

  O’Neill did a sweep of the room. There were pictures on the walls. Pencil sketches of Belfast: two giant cranes from the shipyard, an old-fashioned cinema, a tram at Carlisle Circus. Wilson’s office was neat and well-ordered. If it wasn’t for the uniform, you’d have no idea you were in a police station. The view from the third floor, O’Neill mused to himself. Peace and quiet. Law and order.

  Wilson signed his name and looked up.

  ‘DS O’Neill. Take a seat.’ He gestured to a chair in front of his desk.

  ‘How’s CID?’

  ‘Fine, sir.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  O’Neill didn’t flinch, but his mind instinctively sped up. What had Wilson heard? Who’d he heard it from? He started going through the guys on his shift.

  ‘Ward tells me you are the PI on Laganview. It’s a big job. You’d better be up to it.’

  O’Neill knew he was being simultaneously challenged and doubted. ‘So fill me in then, Detective.’ Wilson offered the last word like an accusation.

  O’Neill couldn’t believe he wanted a progress report. The case wasn’t four hours old. He wanted to tell Wilson to go fuck himself but he knew the game, knew he needed to put on a show, let Wilson see he had a handle on things. He spoke quickly, breaking down the facts — the scene, the state of the victim, the lack of ID, lack of weapon, lack of witnesses. .

  ‘There’s a lot lacking here,’ Wilson said, implying these circumstances were somehow a personal reflection on O’Neill.

  O’Neill ignored it, continuing with the facts. Wilson interrupted him when he mentioned a possible punishment beating.

  ‘Hold on. You need to calm yourself down there, Detective. We need to tread very carefully here.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Punishment beating? We don’t need the press getting hold of that kind of language. And we don’t need them getting it from us.’

  ‘With respect, that’s what it looks like. Sir.’

  ‘Punishment beatings mean paramilitaries. We’re supposed to be past all that. It’s too political. We need to catch who did this, but there are things here that don’t need to be said out loud.’

  That was Wilson. The consummate politician. O’Neill knew what he was getting at but it didn’t mean he ha
d to like it. Instinctively he pushed back.

  ‘It looks like a punishment beating. Sir.’ The mark of deference came out like a swear word.

  ‘I don’t care what it looks like, O’Neill. The Peace Agreement was signed eight years ago. We’re trying to return this country to a state of normality. Punishment beatings, paramilitaries. They’re a thing of the past. They’re gone.’

  ‘Well, someone forgot to tell that kid down at Laganview.’

  Wilson’s face reddened.

  ‘This is not about Laganview. It’s more than that. It’s about money, investment. America. The European Union. The less we hear about punishment beatings, the better. What do you think would happen if people start getting cold feet? Investors pull the plug. Then we’re all in the shit.’

  O’Neill wondered when exactly it was that a dead body ceased to be important in its own right. It was Belfast though. Nothing was ever simply what it was.

  Wilson pulled back, realizing he had strayed from the topic.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong — we need to catch whoever did this. We just need to go about it in the right way.’

  O’Neill knew he should let it go. But. .

  ‘On hospital numbers we had almost three hundred punishment beatings last year. Two-fifty the year before that. It doesn’t sound as if everything’s over, as if it’s all behind us.’

  ‘I don’t need a statistics lesson from you, Detective.’ Wilson glared at O’Neill. ‘But if you like though, we can start drilling down into your own stats. Maybe begin with your clearance rate, eh?’

  O’Neill knew he’d gone too far. Wilson had made his threat. It was subtle, but there nonetheless.

  ‘This is not just another body, whether we want it to be or not. And we’re not just a police force. There’s history to consider.’

  History again, O’Neill thought. For years history had been kicking in doors, shitting on people, giving folk reasons, putting guns in their hands. The North had had too much history. O’Neill remembered the TV when Tony Blair had flown in for the peace talks. He met the press, grinning: ‘I can feel the hand of history on our shoulders. .’ O’Neill wondered who had been grinning the night before, as they stood over the body of a dead teenager on the bank of the River Lagan.