On the back of her card was written, “Knackered. Going home. Thanks for the drinks. If you need me, please call.” She had included a second phone number.
Back down in Flood’s office, McGarr rang up McKeon, Swords, and Ward and Bresnahan, asking them to assemble at his house.
Out on the street, he met Orla Bannon, the Ath Cliath reporter, who was sitting on the bonnet of a car with her legs folded under her.
“Ran out on you, did she? Never trusted academics much meself. It’s the whole tenure thing. What the fook is tenure but a way of saying you can breeze through the rest of your life and still be in the chips? With all the time in the world.
“Drink?” From under a brightly colored cape that looked like a serape, she pulled a pint bottle and held it out. “It’s me pukka pose. Like it?
“What did Sweeney hand you? Looked like a video. Buds now, are you? Into swapping naughty films?” She tsked. “Men are so inscrutable. How quickly things change for you. Or is there something I should know?”
McGarr had stopped in front of her, again wondering at her appearance there just as Sweeney was handing him the tape. Could it have been felicitous, merely her having tailed either Sweeney or McGarr himself there to witness the exchange? Or did Sweeney and she have some other purpose that was, at least for the moment, inscrutable? And finally, what was her work arrangement at Ath Cliath if, as Bresnahan had said, she and Sweeney were at odds? “Chazz didn’t tell you? You, his diva. His ace reporter.”
Becoming more complete, her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes, making her seem rather feline, given her pose. “Done some legwork, I see. Which is good. But not complete enough by half, I’d hazard. Your man Sweeney? He’d sooner give me the sack than the time of day. What’s in the video?”
“Why do you work for him?”
“Beyond money? Space. Where else could I get pages and pages and no—I repeat, no—editorial interference? He touches me copy, I’m gone.”
“Gone with what?”
She only smiled and raised the bottle.
“What about Opus Dei? Ever write about them?”
She nodded. “But I wasn’t working for him then, and we all have our sacred cows. Could it be, McGarr—you and Sweeney share that particular bovine but from different ends?”
Fair play, thought McGarr, all three of the potential murderers of Noreen and Fitz having been associated with the reactionary Catholic sect.
“What about the New Druids? Ever write about them?”
“There’s little I haven’t. They send you that via Sweeney?” She waved the bottle at the video that McGarr now slipped inside his jacket.
“A ransom demand on tape? It’s a nice touch. Eliminates the whole handwriting analysis thing.” The legs came out from under her, and she swung them off the fender. They were shapely legs encased in black stockings.
As though pondering, she raised them and stared at her shoes, which were suede with heels that gave her some height. “But why Sweeney of all people, considering who they are—anti-Christian and all their other rot?”
When she glanced back up at McGarr, her eyes narrowed. “Officially—as written on the papers they had to file when registering as a political party—Celtic United is unattached to any other organization and is run by a woman who calls herself Morrigan.” She pronounced the name “Mor-ee-GAN.” She cocked her head slightly.
McGarr nodded, the name being known to every schoolchild. Morrigan was the unconquerable goddess of war who battled Cuchulainn in the Celtic legends that made up the books of the Ulster Cycle.
“But, really, she’s just another big, blowsy, middle-aged woman full of herself along with mounds of shite and drivel that she unloads at the slightest provocation. But who controls things is a man who calls himself Mide.” Again she gave McGarr a look.
It was another name from old legend, but beyond that…He shook his head.
Orla Bannon raised her head to pipe a short laugh at the dark sky. “Wouldn’t you know it—us from the North always being more up on things Irish than you who’ve secured your own country in part because of those myths.”
“Mide,” he prompted, now remembering. “The chief Druid of the Nemedians.” Only a few years ago he wouldn’t have had to reflect.
“Yes, and—”
“And what?”
“Go on. About Mide.”
“Well, none of this is fair. Obviously you’ve researched this recently—for one of your articles.”
“Not so recently.”
“And me—I’ve not been to school recently.” McGarr glanced at his watch.
“And not too attentively when you did, I’m thinking.”
She paused for his reaction, and he wondered if—beyond her obvious attempt to pump him for information—she was actually trying to flirt with him. Or was it just the drink?
Her smile was full; she was enjoying herself. “Thought as much. After the Nemedians conquered Ireland, your man Mide came up with this scheme. To demonstrate his power, he built a big ritual fire that he kept burning for seven years, some say, without adding fuel. As a prize or reward, he was allowed to exact a tribute of one pig and a sack of grain from every Irish household.
“Two questions: In what way can the dealing in OxyContin, heroin, speed, and the two cocaines be considered the building of a fire, consubstantial or otherwise? And could seven years possibly have elapsed before Mide and his gang began their protection schemes?”
McGarr smiled; it was the “back story” humor that cops and journalists shared, if only to keep sane.
“Morrigan’s real name is Sheila Law. Don’t know much about her apart from gossip saying she’s into young men in numbers, which she has, of course—the recruits, addicted, down-and-out whom they take in. It’s the other side that’s not reported much—the hostels, soup kitchens, methadone clinics they’ve set up. Day to day, they’re run on the up-and-up but are really recruitment centers for culling prospects. The ones who’ll do their bidding competently with few fuckups.”
“What about him? Mide.”
“Fergus Mann. ‘The Fergie Man,’ he’s called. A codger now, but still a nasty piece of work. Former IRA stalwart in the old never-grass-on-nobody-no-matter-the-pain mold. Convicted for two murders, he did the Maze thing with Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers, then nearly two dozen other years until he became by his own say-so a visionary.”
“And his vision?”
“Thick, it is. The whole anti-Christian, IRA thing wrapped in different language—that Ireland was better off with the bunch of bloodthirsty bastards who were our ancestors, the Celts. It appeals to anybody who’s ever had their ears boxed by a priest or a nun, which is everybody. But poor kids from worse backgrounds are targeted. He’s a fookin’ viper, and the New Druids with its CU facade a viper’s nest. Literally.” With her thumb and her first two fingers, she imitated the action of pushing a hypodermic needle into her other arm.
“You’ve written that.”
“I have. You’ll have to start reading me. How much ransom do they want?”
“Where does ‘The Fergie Man’ hang his hat when he’s at home?”
She hunched her shoulders. “Elusive, he is. As you would suspect, given his present involvements and the years he spent in the drum. It’s said he tells people he’s ‘allergic’ to prison, but I bet he keeps in touch with Morrigan at all times. Being a power monger and control freak.”
McGarr turned and began heading off.
“Ah, just when I thought were getting to know each other. Ten million? Twenty? If you tell me, I’ll tell you something I’m only after learning, something you can’t possibly know.”
Stopping, he turned his head and shoulders to her. So far she’d been forthcoming, and without question she had good sources. Maybe she had more for him.
“Thirty?”
He shook his head.
“Forty?”
Again.
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph—fifty fookin’ milli
on, which is, mind you, a nice round figure. But Kehoe will never pay it. He can’t.” Pushing down with her hands, she virtually hopped off the bonnet of the car. “McGarr—you’re a gas. Haven’t we got a wee neat story brewing here?” She hugged her elbows and spun a circle, her long dark braid whipping behind her.
“Well?”
“The something you can’t possibly know?”
He swirled a hand. “Think of it as a lane in the two-way street you mentioned when we first spoke.”
“Okay. Remember, you asked for it.” On heel, then toe, she sauntered up to him, as though to whisper in his ear. She slipped her hand in his jacket pocket and pulled him closer. “Derek Greene?”
McGarr nodded. It was the name of the Trinity security guard who was knocked down and killed two weeks earlier.
“A witness told me the killing car was a BMW.” Their bodies were touching, and her breath was hot in his ear. “The big one.”
“Midnight blue. Gold wheel covers,” McGarr guessed. “Now, for something I don’t know.” The point being to pump her as hard as she was pumping him.
“Two things, darlin’ man—the car, or a car like it, is often parked round back of CU party headquarters.”
“And where would that be?”
“Off the Glasnevin Road near Ballymun. Big place, can’t miss it. Office is open twenty-four hours a day, methadone center upstairs, a ‘dormitory/hostel’ out back down a laneway for in-patient rehab, the brochure says. Most are New Druid recruits or CU operatives, with the whole health-care operation financed by the government. Mide, ‘The Fergie Man,’ being quick on his feet.
“Need more?” she again breathed into his ear. “Your man, Derek Greene? He was interred in the Fairview Cemetery six days ago. But the family phoned me this after’. They’ve been told the grave has been disturbed.”
“Disturbed how?”
“Somebody took off his bloody head.”
McGarr waited.
“Grisly, no? Dug up the casket and chopped his block right off the body. And very much the New Druid thing. Rumor has it, they do it to rival gangs, other thugs horning in on their territory. Sends a message, one told me. Fook with the New Druids, you end up not only dead but headless. Your mammy pines.”
Sending a message—it was the purpose of Raymond Sloane’s murder, according to the voices on the security tape.
McGarr turned his shoulder to move away from her, but she pulled him back. “What are you doing later?”
McGarr suspected there would be no later for him, only morning. “I imagine I’ll be busy.”
Kissing his ear in a way that made him flinch and sent a shiver up his spine, she then shoved him away. “Imagine, then—it’s all you’ll get tonight. But remember—you have my card.”
Walking quickly toward his house, McGarr couldn’t help speculate on what any involvement with somebody so—what was it about Orla Bannon?—seemingly self-possessed, so sure of herself and her talents, might be like.
But then, of course, how to separate the Orla Bannon of the byline from Orla Bannon herself, if there were in fact another person beyond the journalist.
And why, with commerce being brisk along their two-way street. Now, if only all of it proved genuine…
CHAPTER
7
AT HOME MCGARR WENT UP TO MADDIE’S ROOM, where the light was still on. “How go the sums, Madz—done yet?”
“Nearly.”
“Do something for me?”
Her tousled red head came up from the book. “What?” She was dressed in her pajamas, and the covers of her bed were pulled back.
“Copy this for me while I’m on the phone. Use the original for the first, then copy its copy on however many blank tapes that we have.”
“Or tapes that I’ll make blank.”
“There you have it, if they’re expendable. Five will do.” He placed the videotape on the desk, then moved back toward the door and the phone in his study.
“Does it have to do with the Book of Kells?”
“It does, indeed. And after you’re done, I’d like you to see a portion of it.” So you understand what else I do apart from brutalizing the press, was his intention.
In his study, he called his office and asked for the exact address of Celtic United and if the whereabouts of one Fergus Mann, convicted felon, were known.
“The Fergie Man? Mide himself?” Swords asked. “Finding him won’t be easy, Chief.”
“Any way we can.” Which meant touts, illegal searches, wiretaps. “Pull out all the stops.”
“He behind the book theft and murder?”
“Possibility. I’ll also need the accident and police reports on the hit-and-run killing of Derek Greene.”
“They’re sitting on your desk.”
“Any witness statements?”
“Two, both describing the car as big, dark blue, with gold wheel covers. One said she thought it was a BMW.”
McGarr hoped Orla Bannon’s other tips were as accurate.
Next, he phoned McKeon and Bresnahan and Ward, asking them to meet him on the Glasnevin Road near Celtic United headquarters.
Downstairs in the den, where the television was located, Maddie was finishing up the final tape. “We only had two blank tapes and one more that was ‘expendable.’”
“That’s grand. Sit back there, now.” He pointed at a chair. “And I’ll give you some idea what we’re up against. It’s between you, me, and the lamppost, of course. No friends, nobody in school. But I don’t have to remind you of that at this late date.”
“No, Peter, you don’t. I know what to say.” Which was, “My father never mentions his work at home. Not a word.”
In the past, the parents of Maddie’s friends—to say nothing of the children themselves—had tried to extract any little bit of information they could about some ongoing investigation.
“I came by this only a little while ago. It could be the ransom demand, if the page is genuine. You’ll see.” McGarr slipped the tape in the VCR. Stepping back, he found Nuala standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.
McGarr spooled through the first part of the video until the black, hooded figure came on with the demand per se. In silence, the three watched.
“Is it a real page from the Book of Kells he’s burning?” Maddie asked.
“We don’t know yet.” McGarr switched off the tape and hit rewind.
“How can anybody, the government even, pay that much money? And how will it get paid? I mean, that much must be a heap of money.”
“Maddie—you should be in bed,” said Nuala. “I want you upstairs. Now.” She stepped away from the door.
“But Peter let me…”
“No ifs, ands, or buts—you’re past time as we speak.”
“But Peter—”
“Now!”
Her eyes wide and filling with tears, Maddie glared at McGarr, as though to ask why he had not come to her defense. She rushed toward the door. “Granny, sometimes you’re such a witch.”
“And, Peter—I’d like a word with you before you leave.”
Not happy with Nuala, he caught Maddie by the arm and swept her into his arms. “I’d carry you upstairs but you’re getting too big. Night, now.” He kissed and released her.
“Night, Daddy. Love you.” And the “love you” chorus echoed in the hall until she reached her room at the top of the stairs.
Nuala was back in the doorway, as though blocking it. “Think you it wise to let your thirteen-year-old daughter see something like that?”
It was the first time in two years that she had ever questioned McGarr’s raising of Maddie, and he had to check his first impulse, which was to push by her and attend to his pressing business.
“Kehoe will have that tape on every screen in the country by tea tomorrow, so he will.”
Her old dark eyes, which had followed countless politicians over the years, widened, then blinked, as she realized the sense in that. The video of the thieves actu
ally destroying the book would allow Kehoe to take extraordinary measures—deploying the army squads or actually paying the ransom as a last resort.
The public would have witnessed the demand and the destruction of the book. The press would play it up big, running daily features about the history and value of the relic from a time when Ireland enjoyed cultural preeminence in Europe.
In that way and handled with savvy, which was the man’s hallmark, the theft and the drama of its salvation from the forces of evil—again, as witnessed in the hooded, masked figure on the tape—might initiate a revival of interest in Ireland’s medieval Christian past that no 50 million Euros’ worth of advertising could equal. Or at least spark a revival of interest in Kehoe’s remaining taoiseach for another several years.
“I think you know what I mean. I’m not blaming you. You are what you are, and we knew that. But are you doing it for her? Or for yourself?”
“Why would I be doing it for myself?”
“I think you have to ask yourself that.”
Now McGarr pushed by her and started down the stairs. “D’you think I haven’t?”
“Not completely enough.”
At the bottom, he turned and looked up at her. “But you have?”
She nodded. “To absolve yourself of the guilt you feel, when there should be no guilt to be felt. I’ve asked you before, and I’m asking you again—see somebody. Priest, counselor, anybody. But do it. For us.”
“What galls me is how duplicitous and in-your-face it all is,” McGarr could hear Bresnahan telling McKeon through the receiver/transmitter that was looped over his right ear. “Look at that building, bold as brass with a methadone center and even a rehab out back when bottom line is they’re in the effin’ trade. They have to be stopped.”
The three private cars—Bresnahan’s battered Opel surveillance sedan, Ward’s new Audi, and McGarr’s old Rover sedan—were parked at the curb on the busy Glasnevin Road several hundred yards from Celtic United headquarters.
It was an old brick commercial building of four floors with a brightly lit shop front over which hung a large green flag with CU in white Celtic script across its face. Interweaved through the letters were designs in bright orange that seemed to mimic the images and symbols seen in the Book of Kells, it occurred to McGarr. There was the tongue and tail of a snake, one paw and the head of a lion, and within one tangle appeared the eyes of a sheep, but deep and soulful, looking out.
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