Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  “Two people dead, another straight out of jail and into hospital with a shattered jaw. This is great work, Libby,” he spat, starting to walk around her room.

  “I, honestly, I couldn’t have imagined—”

  “She was one of the best assets we ever had. One of the most senior. Now she’s dead because of this fucking two-bit operation, and we have no idea who killed her!”

  “Is it definitely murder?”

  “It’s worse – it looks almost like an accident. Whoever did this is either very lucky or very forensically aware.”

  “What does the post-mortem say?”

  “Trauma to the arms, upper back and shoulder – which we might be able to blame on the cops during the arrest. That might get us away from the idea that she was pushed down the stairs, but the son’s shattered face is hard to bloody explain, isn’t it?”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “What? What!” the superior screamed. “He’s not saying anything! His jaw’s in twenty bloody pieces!”

  Libby shook her head in despair. “Where does this leave us?”

  “A dead asset, a suffocated geriatric with a mysteriously missing oxygen bottle and a halfwit with a busted face, all within hours of being released from custody. That’s pretty much where we’re at.”

  “Can we blame loyalists? Locals? A local backlash!” She leapt at the notion.

  “We,” he lowered his voice, “we, Libby, will say nothing. We will not manage this. We will allow this to become a problem for the police.”

  “But we were supposed to be watching the house.”

  “That’s for the opso to sort out with the cops.”

  “But it was us,” Libby shortened her steps, careful not to upset her superior any further by saying “you”, “that ordered a loose watch.”

  “Convey to the operations officer, Libby, that it is vital that that information is not passed on to the police.”

  Libby nodded and turned to face her second bollocking of the morning.

  “Job on the safe house.”

  Unaccustomed as Grim was to compliments from the boss, he knew better than to bullshit him. “How do you mean?”

  “Old Rushe – the tidy-up.”

  “Sorry, I’m not following you.”

  “Deirdre Rushe getting dead. Wasn’t you?”

  “No,” said Grim, astonished. “When? I thought they’d released her?”

  “And then this morning she’s dead. Not you, then. Well, that’s a shame. Thought you’d finally managed to do something right.” The boss looked witheringly at Grim.

  “Where’s the manager?” Grim looked for a diversion.

  “Not coming.”

  “Why?”

  “Done a runner across the border.”

  “To where?”

  “Usual, I’d say.”

  The three had met plenty of times on the shores of Carlingford Lough or in the hills and woods above it; hopeful of sufficient cover to avoid detection, confident that the Republic’s surveillance techniques weren’t as sophisticated as those of the British.

  “Was she murdered?”

  “I assumed so. Now, I dunno.”

  “Suicide?”

  The boss shrugged. “Still, suits well enough. Gives you a layer of protection anyway even if it wasn’t you.”

  “What about the engineer – has he been lifted?”

  “Don’t know,” said the boss.

  “That’s the weak link, far as I can see.”

  “Weak how?” The boss’s cold eyes rotated almost mechanically to stare at his number two.

  “Well, the engineer could lead back to you,” Grim ventured, suddenly unsure.

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So what have the cops got?” the boss asked.

  “Well, they can link me to the kid in the car, but that’s all, far as I can see. My solicitor says there’s no sign of surveillance evidence.”

  “They’ll have surveillance,” the boss grunted. “Be sure of that. But what’ll they get from that?”

  “Well, I was never in Ballycastle,” Grim replied, but neglected to mention that the manager had been pressured into going.

  “Ok, let’s see. They’ll want us to do a bit of time, no matter what. I’d expect a spell on remand.”

  Grim had anticipated as much. If prosecutors couldn’t prove anything, they could at least offer charges of some sort in an attempt to take the pair off the streets until the case collapsed.

  The opso stood like a DJ in a nightclub with one headphone pressed to his ear listening to the exchange between Grim and the boss. They hadn’t killed the old girl, then.

  The watch may have been loose, but to have failed to spot anyone entering or leaving the house was strange. They had no idea how two people had died under their noses without even a whimper.

  “I want every word from that pair,” he snapped.

  “We’ve got them well covered,” the operator confirmed.

  Listening devices had been placed in the clothing of both Grim and the boss during their arrest. While they were in jail operatives had been deployed to their respective wardrobes to secrete further fully-charged units to coats, boots, shoes and buttons. It was as lavish an outlay as the DET had committed in years, and unless the pair met in a swimming pool in their Speedos, the opso was confident he would be able to patch in. He was happy with that, but less happy at the visitors he saw approach the perimeter gate on the monitor. He sighed and hit an intercom button.

  “Let Laurel and Hardy in. Give them a brew and tell Libby they’re here. I’ll meet them in a conference room.”

  He set out on the five-minute walk. Libby caught him up on the way.

  “It wasn’t us, apparently.”

  “Don’t talk shite.” The opso was too exhausted to get angry.

  “Really. It genuinely wasn’t us. Up the chain – they’re livid.”

  “They’re livid that an old Provo is dead?”

  “Livid that we didn’t see anyone go in or out.”

  The opso stopped in his tracks. “Can I just remind you, Libby, that it was your team who demanded a loose watch.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “So it wasn’t Grim, and it wasn’t the boss. And you say it wasn’t your crowd. So nobody did it, apparently. They just died all by themselves.”

  Libby said nothing – she had nothing to say.

  “What do I say to this pair?” The opso started marching again. “This has put my team tight in it, Libby.”

  “I’m really sorry. What if …”

  “What?”

  “What if I come in with you?”

  “You’d be prepared to do that?”

  “It’s not fair that you take the heat for something I did.”

  The opso relented a little. “I know it’s not you, Libby. I know there are people pulling the strings.”

  “But I can help put it right. You’d need to introduce me as one of your team, though. Best they don’t know who I work for.”

  “You sure? What are you gonna say?”

  “I have an idea,” she said as they buzzed the gate. “Bear with me.”

  The gate opened and they crossed a short hallway to enter the conference suite. There stood the short one, while the tall one sat, fingers locked into one another on the desk in front of him. Nobody said hello.

  “Big problem,” Hardy eventually muttered – which was unusual given that Laurel usually did the talking.

  The opso looked at Libby, who breathed in deep and began. “We’ve reviewed what we have. I’m afraid there’s not much.”

  Laurel spat out a sarcastic laugh and arched his back into the rear of his chair. “Here we go.”

  “And who are you?” asked Hardy.

  “She’s my best analyst,” said the opso.

  “We were on location from when the first party arrived at the address on release from custody,” Libby pressed on.

  “Not before?�
�� Hardy’s tone was flat.

  “Not before,” Libby confirmed.

  “When did you become aware of an incident?”

  “We were monitoring the phone line. We knew of the emergency call same time as you. Although, as you know, there was no speech on the call on account of the—”

  “Shattered jaw,” Laurel interjected. “Do you expect me to believe that you didn’t place a listening device in the house?”

  “We didn’t,” said the opso.

  “Why?” asked Laurel, not believing a word of it.

  “Because we’ve been tied up getting your lot information on surveillance we don’t have in relation to a bomb attack we knew nothing about,” the opso barked back, managing to summon indignant anger despite lying through his teeth.

  “This is beyond a joke,” Laurel said. “I’m supposed to go back to the MIT team and tell them that the request we made,” he gestured between himself and Hardy, “to have a watch placed on this family has resulted in two of them dead and not a peep was heard of any of it?”

  “You asked for a watch, we put a watch in place – we monitored their phone.”

  “Sure, we could have done that!” Laurel shouted, exasperated. “You’re supposed to bring an extra layer of sophistication to the whole thing!”

  The opso looked at Libby.

  She put out her hands and offered her spiel. “Listen, lads.”

  “Lads, now, is it?” Hardy’s tone didn’t waver.

  “We can’t give you what we don’t have, and, I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone coming to or leaving the property. We just don’t.”

  “We’ll want the pictures, assuming you have some this time,” Laurel nipped.

  “You can have them.” Libby looked to the opso, who nodded. “But it makes us wonder, is this whole thing a bit simpler than it seems?”

  “What d’ye mean?” Hardy asked.

  “Well, if we don’t have anyone going in or leaving, could it not be that the son did it?”

  The two men stared perplexed at Libby and the opso resisted the temptation to do the same.

  She pushed on. “He’s angry at being arrested, right? He turns on the mother, maybe they have a fight, and she hits him.”

  “That old crow couldn’t break a man’s jaw.”

  “Unless she hit him with the oxygen cylinder.”

  Laurel’s head was shaking.

  “She hits him, smashes his jaw, and in the struggle he pushes her down the stairs.”

  “So where’s the bottle?” Hardy answered flatly.

  “That’s your job.” Libby was keen to turn the tables. “You tell us. We’re not experts in investigations.”

  “You’re not experts in anything, far as I can see,” Laurel growled.

  “You’ve a man suffocated, right?” Libby pressed on.

  “Uh-huh,” Hardy agreed.

  “Maybe that happened cos she took the bottle from the husband and hit the son, and he pushed her before the bottle could be reattached.”

  “All good,” said Laurel, “except for one thing. Son’s been interviewed in hospital and he wrote down his answers. He says there was a man there – hard-looking nut. Dressed like a spaceman, he says. Waiting on them. Which makes me think, that’s the second time some bloke who looks like an undercover bod has been spotted in that town. Which then makes me think you lot are giving us the fucking runaround. Which makes my boss think that your team needs investigated.”

  Messy, thought the opso, who could feel himself rinsed, rung and about to be hung on a washing line by everyone around him. And all because of a missing oxygen bottle.

  The bottle had been essential.

  Sam had predicted a very tight watch on their home. On his previous visit – darting around in the dark, he’d noted the split-level roofs of the semi-detached houses. The old girl’s neighbour had upstairs window conversions, as well as a little pile of post in the porch behind the glass door. All Sam reckoned he needed was a gas-powered life jacket, maybe the cylinder from a foghorn as backup and his drysuit, which he’d washed down thoroughly. The suit, sealed at the neck, wrists and feet prevented hair, sweat or clothing matter from falling anywhere.

  It was also pitch-black on his return visit, so he made his way to the house unnoticed. A hop onto a wheelie bin took him to the rear return of a gently sloping roof and to the cheap Velux-alterative window. Carefully he fed the life jacket material between the seal and the sill and, when satisfied, he triggered the gas canister to blow the double hook locks to the side, leaving them unbroken and him free to roll in. The plan was to leave no hint at all that there had been a break-in.

  All had gone far too smoothly as he stood in the silent house, confident the neighbours were on holiday. He’d been removing the roof-space hatch when he heard a car pull up. He froze and waited, then heard the groans of a stretch from a long drive and the trundle of a trolley suitcase.

  Sam strode back to the window and reluctantly closed it again. Gathering his bits, he quickly stuffed them behind the heavy waterproof zip of his suit and chinned himself up into the attic. He replaced the timber square just as someone started up the stairs.

  “Oh, it’s damp up here, David,” he heard a woman call behind her.

  “Well, it’s been a month. Open the windows for a minute,” a man shouted.

  “Too cold!”

  “It’s ok, I’ll put the heating on for a while.”

  “You forgot to lock them, David!”

  “What?”

  “This one wasn’t locked!” she shouted.

  “Sorry. The key’s in the bedside cabinet!”

  Not good news. Sam waited. He heard the hum of a boiler come on, and twenty minutes later the windows began slamming shut, one after the other. Then the locks were turned.

  When the woman was back downstairs he used the clanking of heating pipes and the creak of a warming house to cover his crawl through to the target house, only to find a partition wall had been built right up to the rafter. He rested on his knees for a moment and questioned whether luck was stacked against him. Outside were some of the best-trained special operatives in the British Isles, as well as what appeared to be a reporter. Meanwhile, he was locked in a roof space of two occupied semis and had a wall to dismantle without any tools.

  Gently he extracted the foghorn canister and tried scraping the mortar from between the bricks with the nozzle. Accidentally, the air escaped and blew the old sand–cement mix out easily. He kept going until the first brick was loose and set it down gently. One after another he pulled the blocks off until the gas was finished and he had just enough room to climb into the next opening. He felt his way lightly, occasionally flicking on his head torch to confirm he wasn’t about to plummet through the plasterboard. Ten feet to the hatch took thirty minutes to navigate. He listened intently. Nothing. He lifted it gently, lowered himself down, crossed a tight landing and sat on a bed in a room with a pink carpet. And waited.

  The extraction had been more difficult. Sam was rusty. That two, possibly three, people had died required greater attention to detail than he had afforded on the way into the house. There would be a proper forensic investigation, so covering tracks was essential. He also knew that outside was a team who would apply more than usual effort to establish what had happened.

  He left through the ceiling, abandoning hope of replacing the brickwork – there would be no means of establishing when the party wall had been dismantled. Then he lugged the canister, with great care, back to the neighbours’ house, comforted by the snoring of one of its inhabitants. He checked the through-ceiling fittings for light from below and, satisfied, began his descent into the house. He balanced on the canister to replace the attic hatch, wobbling worryingly as he met the ground again, pausing for any indication of movement. Then, down the stairs to the back door – there was no way his luck would stretch to him retrieving the window keys from a bedside cabinet no matter how soundly the couple slept. There he unlocked it from the inside and onc
e again placed the flat bladder of the life jacket carefully between the sliding bolts of the lock. On the outside he attached the air to the inlet and inflated the life jacket to ram the lock bolts back into place, then deflated it again as he pulled it free. Ten steps across the backyard brought him to a hedgerow over which he and the bottle went. The house behind stood silent as he made his way past their bins and onto a parallel street.

  Down the hill he went, taking a joining street to check on his former colleagues – still sitting in their car apparently unaware of any excitement. It would take a very careful police investigation to establish a means of entry or departure. Content, he went back to the RIB and made his way to Glenarm.

  The three of them woke late the next day, the salt air and the motion of the boat having put them properly out. Sinead made breakfast with an efficiency of movement, as if she’d battered around a cramped galley all her life. Pancakes, at Isla’s request – flour everywhere.

  And then, inevitably, the parting, but it wasn’t an awkward affair.

  “Right so, I’d better hit south,” she’d said.

  Isla looked up in surprise. “Why?”

  “Because I have to go back to work and you lads have to sail home. I assume you’re headed back?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “School, Isla. We’ve got to get back to normal at some stage.”

  “But you said you wanted me to go to the sessional?”

  Any port in a storm, Sam thought. “A professional,” Sam said. “A counsellor.”

  “I used to see a sessional,” Sinead said, unexpectedly.

  Sam paused and listened.

  “Why?” said Isla, straight out with it.

  “To help me with things in my head that were keeping me awake at night.”

  “What things?”

  “Things from the past,” was as far as she went. “Not for sharing with anyone except the sessional. You know, wee secret things.”

  Sam didn’t want to pry but felt awkward ignoring her effort to encourage Isla. “Did it help?”

  “It really, really did,” she said brightly, still looking at Isla. “I sleep really well now.”

  “I sleep ok,” said Isla.