Death in Dublin

by Bartholomew Gill

  It was the “Stu” who had been with Sweeney on the railway platform in Dun Laoghaire when the second ransom tape was delivered from the hijacked train. The man whom Sweeney had warned by saying “Stu,” which caused him to flee:

  Late thirties, early forties. Curly blondish hair that had just begun to gray. Handsome in a rugged sort of way, in spite of a rough complexion and a noticeable scar on one cheek.

  He said something to the woman, and she rose up a bit and slid her hand under her bottom and down on him.

  “Pssst!” Bresnahan whispered from below the window. “See anything? I’m freezin’ me fanny off down here.”

  Reaching up, the woman below—Gillian—pulled her top off one shoulder and the other just to the edges of her nipples, then leaned back to rest her head on the shoulder of the man beneath her. Stu.

  Who muttered something to her, before picking her up with both arms, turning and spreading her across the top of the desk, out of Ward’s direct line of sight through the open window. And when he positioned a knee on the desk and climbed up, all Ward could see of her and him were their shoes.

  But combined with the movement of their shapes through the grimy, vaguely translucent glass, it was enough to understand what they were about. Especially when her ankles crimped around his and she gave out a little cry of what sounded like pleasure.

  “Hughie! I swear, I’ll go back to the car, if you don’t come down.”

  Which was loud enough to stop them.

  “You hear that?” the man, Stu, asked.

  She mumbled or moaned again, and there was a pause before their four feet began moving again.

  Very slowly and cautiously, Ward moved to the edge of the wall. There he sat and eased himself over, allowing his body to stretch to the max before releasing his grip. Even so, he would have fallen in a heap, but for the fence that kept him upright.

  “So?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  “You mean—we’re not going in?”

  “We—you and me—can’t go in”—no longer being Gardai, he meant.

  “It hasn’t stopped us yet.”

  “Yes, but it’s not just you and me. It’s Peter, who’s in enough trouble as it is.”

  “Because of us, you mean? Because of me? I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “I didn’t say anything of the sort. And it’s you who’s only after saying it yourself.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How’s it different?” At the corner of the building, Ward surveyed the warehouse loading dock, before stealing across the laneway to the trees that separated it from the parking lot of the chocolate factory, with Bresnahan behind him.

  “It’s different because you’re supposed to love me and support me.”

  Ward twisted the key, and the doors of the old Opel popped. “Didn’t I say it was shite? What are you supposed to do—shoot the bastard with a gang of maybe fifty behind him? You did the right thing.”

  “You’re sure.”

  Exasperated, Ward only looked off through the trees toward the warehouse.

  After a while, Bresnahan settled herself back against the seat. “So, what are we going to do? Nothing? When here we sit at the location of a major—perhaps the major—drug distribution center in the city, to say nothing of being the safe house of suspected murderers who also decapitate their victims, and—”

  “There’s nothing that we can do. We can’t storm the building, not with at least three of them in there most likely well armed. The squad can’t help us, now that Peter’s been removed from the case, not without risking their own jobs and careers. And any call for official help will only bring Sheard.”

  Bresnahan sighed. “And we don’t want that.”

  Ward reached over and tried to place a hand on her thigh but she fended him off. “You’re tired.”

  “No, I’m not—I’m exhausted.”

  Ward then told her what he had seen through the open skylight window. “It’s this Stu who interests me.”

  Earlier in the day, when the large car had pulled up in front of the Ath Cliath news office, Ward had seen Sweeney’s companion leave the building with him.

  And whose car was it? Sweeney’s? As far as Ward knew, Sweeney, who had lost his driver’s license after multiple drunk-driving convictions, was now chauffeured around town in one of three Rolls that he owned.

  With tinted windows and the wheel of the car on the curb side, the driver was obscured.

  Finally, on the DART commuter train platform, there had been Sweeney’s warning to the man—“Stu!”—who had then fled.

  Had this Stu been in the Ath Cliath building with Sweeney? Or was he, as it now seemed, an ally or part of Ray-Boy’s group? And where was Ray-Boy? Discretion could be the better route. Why make Sheard look good?

  “Why don’t you go home, get some sleep? Later, you can spell me.”

  Bresnahan shook her head more in resignation than disagreement. “In the old days, we would have stormed the feckin’ place and extracted them and the truth, one way or another.”

  But the old days on the Squad were gone forever, mainly because of Sweeney.

  Ward reached for his cell phone to call Bresnahan a cab and ring up McGarr. In that order.

  CHAPTER

  12

  MCGARR LEFT KARA KENNEDY’S FLAT EARLY, AROUND half six, taking note of how she slept with seeming abandon—one arm thrown back over her head, the other having been resting on McGarr’s chest when he awoke.

  In such a pose, she looked almost juvenile—her breasts raised and splayed to either side, her stomach concave, her thighs slender and spread with one knee cocked to the side. Like that, he judged her to be a handsome woman—not traditionally pretty, but just well made in a way that was at once classical and exotic. And sounded something deep in him.

  Kissing her gently on the smooth curve of her forehead, he said, “You sleep. I’ll call you later when I know what I’m about.”

  “Oh, no,” she said sleepily, reaching for him. “Aren’t you going to stay with me just a wee bit longer?”

  But he was too consumed with thoughts of Sweeney’s phone call. Somehow, it all seemed too good: Sweeney’s having the money, the possibility of getting the books back largely intact, and—when he had checked his phone messages in Kara’s kitchen on first getting up—a call from Ward saying that Bresnahan and he had located not only Ray-Boy but perhaps Gillian Reston and the man who had been present at the drop of the second videotape, the one who had arrived with Sweeney.

  Moving down the staircase from the flat to the front door, McGarr phoned Swords at Murder Squad headquarters. “What—no sleep?”

  “Who needs it?” Swords replied. “Sleep is boring. Not like the newspapers. One thing we can say about Sweeney—he’s an entertainer. I’d read you today’s installment of Ath Cliath, but it’s something you should savor on your own.”

  “May I add to your burden?” In a way, McGarr felt guilty about how he had passed the night, when compared with Swords and the other staffers who had worked through another night, sifting through documents. But being with Kara again made him understand how much of life he’d been missing.

  “Could we find out just what automobiles are owned by Chazz Sweeney and/or Ath Cliath?”

  “Sheard’s been by. Twice. Once for the file, the cloak, and the voice scrambler from Pape’s. Second time, it was to tell me he’s taking over the squad. Had a letter signed by O’Rourke. He ordered us out, then switched off the lights and locked the door. We adjourned to Hogan’s and came back after closing.”

  “Good man.” McGarr rang off.

  A heavy pounding rain had begun overnight, and it had scarcely eased as McGarr hurried to his car, where he found Orla Bannon’s business card under the windscreen wiper with the advisory “Other women get horny too.”

  On the short ride home, he stopped at a newsagent and had to pull the three papers out of their bundles at the early hour, slipping the money t
hrough the mail slot. Neither Nuala nor Maddie had arisen, so he carried the papers into the kitchen, where he readied some coffee.

  Ath Cliath’s cover story was BANNON: RANSOM TAPE II. The story jumped to a two-page spread where she also covered the decapitation-murder of Mide, the New Druid founder.

  In premier tabloid form, she speculated that “perhaps the theft of the Book of Kells prefigured a power struggle between the New Druid founder—who possessed an actual, if suspect, ideology—and recent recruits attracted by the New Druids’ seeming monopoly of drugs, money, and street sex in the major cities of the country.”

  A third story without a byline was more interesting to McGarr. It dealt with Sheard’s announcement that Pape was cooperating with Garda investigators and there would soon be “a breakthrough in regard to the theft of the books and the murder of Raymond Sloane.”

  But as for the possible return of the books: “‘There’s been no movement on that front, nor is there likely to be,’” Sheard was quoted as saying. “‘As Taoiseach Kehoe has said—the government will not truck with thieves, murderers, and their ransom demands, no matter the consequence. It would only encourage further such criminal acts.’”

  And of the three papers, again it was only Ath Cliath that reported a possible reason for the hijacking of an inbound DART train at Killiney and its abandonment in Sandymount. “The hijackers, seen brandishing handguns and assault rifles, were dressed in the regalia of New Druids, according to an eyewitness, with a hijacker tossing out something onto the platform at Dun Laoghaire.”

  McGarr glanced up over his kitchen sink, where he was standing, and looked out at his garden, which because of high walls had only just come into clear view in the early morning light.

  Hadn’t Ward said to him it was a hat that had been scaled to him, and only after he picked it up did he discover that it contained a videotape? Only he and Sweeney had debated who would take possession of it.

  Could Sweeney now be writing for his own paper? Why not? But he had always claimed an Olympian distance from all but the editorial page, Bannon’s independence being proof of his objective stance.

  “An earlier ransom demand for the ancient manuscripts stolen from Trinity College Library took the form of a videotape. The second tape was picked up by a bystander who Garda officials hope will come forward with the packet.”

  Carrying his coffee out into the garden, as first light was melding into dawn, McGarr moved slowly around the flagged walkway, which was still damp from the rain during the night, and tried to understand just where he stood in all that had happened.

  Could he beat the charges about the car and the shooting death at New Druid headquarters? Ultimately, if all the evidence were brought to light. But it would take time, especially if Sheard chose to drag out the process, and he would be branded—even more so than he already was—by the event, to the detriment of his family, any career that he might still have left, and his reputation.

  Why had Sheard gone for him?

  Why not? There was Sheard’s obvious ambition, and, once McGarr had provided Kehoe a way out of the blame that inevitably would have been visited on him, it would not have been difficult for Sheard to convince him of the politic course.

  Now they could blame the New Druids or some larger conspiracy involving Pape and claim Sheard had lost the opportunity to collar them because of the Glasnevin Road incident. And even if and when, later, the postmortem report were issued, the political fallout would be far less. After all, it would be the public’s perceptions—formed by Ath Cliath and the other media—that would count.

  Suddenly, McGarr felt the presence of somebody near him and looked up to find Nuala.

  “How be ye?”

  He nodded.

  “That Sheard is a bastard. You haven’t heard the last of him yet.”

  McGarr nodded again.

  “Raising himself up with his boot on your neck.”

  McGarr looked out on the soil of his unplanted garden.

  “What will you do?”

  He shrugged.

  “You have to do something. Like this, he’s burying you, and all the good things you’ve done over the years won’t matter a jot.”

  Some time went by. A pied wagtail kited down onto one of his barren raised beds, turned an ear to the ground, and plucked up a fat worm.

  “There’s the form for you,” said Nuala. “Bravo, me budgie.”

  After another little while, during which they heard a neighbor departing for work, “Not to add to your problems, but Maddie?”

  McGarr turned his head to her.

  “She says she doesn’t want to go to school this morning.”

  “Ill, is she?”

  “No. She’s not ill. She just says she doesn’t want to go for a while.”

  “Because of me?” McGarr stood.

  “I would suspect.”

  McGarr had to knock on Maddie’s closed door.

  She did not respond.

  “May I come in?”

  Still nothing.

  McGarr turned the handle and opened the door. She was in bed with a pillow over her head. “What gives? Nuala tells me you don’t want to go to school. But you’re not ill.”

  She did not move; the pillow remained over her head. He reached down to take it away, but she held on to it fast.

  “I think you can hear me, and I should imagine this has something to do with my situation. Am I right?”

  McGarr sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’d like you to go to school, but I’ll leave that decision up to you. For today.

  “Things…can be made to seem worse than they are. That fella who spilled out of the car? He had shot at us. But the bullet that killed him? It was fired from a rifle and maybe by one of his own, for reasons we don’t quite know.

  “Television, the press, reports, even being there—people can come up with distorted views of what happened. But the important thing is to do everything you can to discover the truth, not just as you want to see it, but as it is.”

  There was still no response from her. And no movement.

  “Second thing? Even if what’s being said about me were true, you’re not responsible for that in any way. All you have to know is that I try to do my job as well and as fairly and legally as I can.

  “And think of this—what would your absence from school suggest to your classmates? That you’re ashamed because I did wrong? I think so. When, in fact, you should only be ashamed of whatever you do wrong. And then, I actually did nothing wrong.

  “I’ll leave you now, but you should know I love you.”

  Standing, McGarr found Nuala in the doorway. “They say Sheard’s about to give another press conference. Perhaps you should see it.”

  While Brendan Kehoe was not standing with Jack Sheard at the brace of microphones, McGarr recognized the anteroom in Leinster House, which stamped the occasion with the imprimatur of the taoiseach’s office.

  Reading from notecards that he held in the palm of a hand, Sheard was saying, “…on charges that he conspired with security guard Raymond Sloane, Sloane’s son—Raymond Sloane Junior—and unknown others to steal the Book of Kells and those of Durrow and Armagh. It is not known why Sloane the elder was murdered during the commission of the crime, nor if the death of one Derek Greene, another Trinity security guard, a fortnight earlier might be connected to the theft. But we know this.

  “Greene was knocked down and killed by the same car that, two weeks later, Raymond Sloane Junior was suspected of driving and was discovered behind the headquarters of Celtic United on the Glasnevin Road. In an attempt to question Sloane and examine the car, Garda officials and some others—who may have been helping the police—fired upon the car, resulting in the death of Kevin Carney. Evidence was discovered providing scientific proof that the car had been involved in the death of Greene.”

  Opening a lapel of his tan suit jacket, Sheard slipped the notecards into a pocket and paused dramatically before lifting his eyes to the ca
meras. “The owner of the costly car—a large and rather new BMW—had been Trevor Pape, the head librarian of Trinity College, before he virtually gave it to Sloane senior.

  “But there is another link in all of this—the scourge of drugs. Not only were traces of a variety of drugs discovered in the boot and backseat of the car, Dr. Pape’s drug problem is long-standing, as was that of Sloane senior. Additionally, Sloane junior is a suspected drug dealer and New Druid enforcer. As we know, a ransom demand was made by a man who holds the beliefs of that group.

  “How Pape, the Sloanes, the car, and perhaps some element of the New Druids actually worked the crime will remain a matter of conjecture perhaps until Sloane junior or some other of the conspirators are apprehended. But two items of physical evidence linking Pape to the ransom tape were discovered in Pape’s abode. For health reasons, Pape has been removed to a hospital detox unit.”

  Sheard took a half step back from the microphones. “Questions?”

  Which were shouted at him: Do you have any idea where the stolen manuscripts are? Has Pape made a statement? How ill is he? Do you know where Ray-Boy Sloane is at the moment, and are you close to making an arrest? Is there evidence other than the car linking him to the crimes? New Druids control the drug trade in Dublin, New Druids appear on the ransom tape—is it the government’s intention to crack down on their activities and/or have them declared an enemy of the state, as is the IRA?

  To nearly all of the questions, Sheard said he’d divulged all that he could at the moment and would not presume to speak for the government. He was simply a policeman doing his job, but there was progress.

  As ever, he appeared confident, competent, and in command of the situation.

  Until Orla Bannon asked, “What about the mix-up on the Glasnevin Road? My sources indicate that the driver of the vehicle was not killed with a Garda weapon but rather a bullet from an assault rifle of the sort not in the armory of the Garda Siochana.”

  Sheard’s features glowered. “A rumor like that was floating around. But as announced yesterday, the matter is under investigation with the offending…the commanding Garda officers having been suspended.