‘Duffy!’
‘Can’t stop, sir, I’ve an appointment in Belfast. CID business. Don’t worry, I took care of the cat.’
‘Duffy, you’ve turned in all your receipts. Sergeant Dalziel wants to know why all three of you had to go to London. He says you’ll have to take the travel out of your budget, not the station budget.’
‘We got a three-for-two ticket. I’ll take care of it. Really must go, sir.’
BMW.
Crabbie sitting next to me in the front seat. Lawson in the back. Radio 3 playing Rachmaninov. All that monotonous running up and down in the arpeggios. Who can stand it?
‘Turn it off Crabbie, will ya, mate?’ I said.
‘Radio 2?’ he suggested.
‘Aye, why not.’
He flipped to Radio 2 and easy listening carried us up the A2 and the M5. ‘Your Cheating Heart’ by Hank Williams as we pulled up in front of Tony’s office on York Road. Me and Crabbie very much enjoying it, but young Lawson sitting in the back with utter incomprehension etched on his face.
The Blacklock Building was in an old cigarette factory near the docks that had recently been converted into cheap office space. High ceilings, lots of square footage, water views. It would take a hundred years to get rid of the cigarette pong, but you probably got used to it after a while. Plenty of parking, too, now that the factory was gone and the docks weren’t exactly turning over a roaring trade. It used to be thriving in this part of town, not ten years ago, but now shipping containers lay rusting on wharves and the big cranes of Harland and Wolff shipyard were idle down on Queen’s Island. The only things that weren’t rusting were the rows of gleaming aluminium DeLoreans that had been sitting on the dock for four years in legal limbo.
Tony’s office was on the top floor with a nice view right down the lough. The place looked good. He had a receptionist and a secretary, a Coke machine and two comfortable sofas arranged around a coffee table. The walls were painted in pastels and there was original art hanging on them.
‘Can I help you gents?’ the very pretty receptionist asked, putting down a nail-polish brush and a bottle of red enamel.
‘We’re the police. Has Mr McIlroy got a moment?’ I said.
‘Have a seat, please, and I’ll ask Donna if he’s busy. Donna is he busy?’
Donna looked up from Cosmopolitan magazine.
‘I’ll go and see,’ she said.
‘Tell him Sean Duffy’s here to see him.’
She told him and Tony burst out into the reception area with a big grin on his face. He was wearing a baggy blue suit, which I assumed was the style in London, but which none of us had seen in Belfast before. Clashing with the suit was a canary-yellow tie and pointy brown shoes, but I had the feeling that the clash was deliberate and this, too, was the fashion over the water. Should have paid more attention when I was in London.
He shook me warmly by the hand and, recognising Crabbie from several previous meetings, shook his hand. I re-introduced him to Lawson and we followed him into his office, which looked pretty good, too. Bright blue paint-job, big windows overlooking the harbour, paintings of Mediterranean landscapes, teak desk, leather sofa.
‘Have a seat, lads. What can I do for you?’ Tony said, sitting down at the desk, which was completely clear of executive toys, computers, or anything else, save for a phone, a notebook and a couple of pencils – nice touch that: shrink-like, clients’ needs to the forefront.
‘Cigar?’ Tony asked, opening the door of a humidor that had been cleverly built into his desk. He removed a box of very elegant-looking Cohibas.
‘I don’t mind if I do, Tony,’ I said, grabbing one.
Neither Lawson nor Crabbie wanted a cigar.
‘Take theirs,’ Tony insisted.
‘All right,’ I said and took two more.
‘I will take one, after all,’ Crabbie said and although Tony’s grin was fixed, I noticed that as the cigars disappeared from the proffered box he winced a little. It was a wince that conveyed a lot of information. As always, Tony put up a good front. The brand-new office, the business cards, the hair, the clothes … And yes, he was right. Private security was a growth industry in Northern Ireland. The security situation was tenuous, to say the least, and Ulster did have some wealthy people, but it can’t have been easy to get a start-up business going in the Ulster of 1987. There were other detective agencies feasting on divorce work and for the bigger contracts there were Securicor and Home Guard. Tony might have the contacts and money coming in, but he clearly couldn’t easily afford to see pricey cigars disappear into the pockets of visiting RUC men.
We sat down on the leather sofa, opposite Tony. Behind him, through the continual Belfast drizzle, the car ferry was leaving for Liverpool.
‘Oh! Drinks. Whisky?’ Tony asked, and before we had a chance to say that we were on duty and really shouldn’t, he’d poured us all a healthy measure of Islay.
We thanked him and got down to business.
‘Tony, look, this isn’t a social call, we’ve come to talk to you about Lily Bigelow’s death,’ I said.
‘Of course. I read you arrested that old geezer in the castle. Why would he do it? Not a sex crime, surely?’
‘We don’t know why he did it. We’ve turned the case over to the DPP and I suppose he’ll try to figure out the whys and wherefores.’
‘So what do you need from me?’ he asked.
‘Well, we’ve got this little additional wrinkle to the whole case. Apparently, Lily only came to Northern Ireland in the first place because she got a tip that the Kinkaid Young Offenders’ Institution was being used as some kind of centre for underage prostitution and that the visiting Finnish delegation might be taken there on their trip to Northern Ireland. Have you heard anything about that?’
Tony looked amazed. ‘I was with them almost 24/7 for the three days they were here. I never saw anything like that. You met the Finns, Sean. Geriatrics and those two ridiculous kids. Don’t think they’re up to anything like that.’
‘It seems unlikely.’
‘What’s this Kinkaid place? Never heard of it.’
‘Some sort of borstal. Quite an impressive place, actually. Very modern institution. No criminal records on the staff and the board of governors includes prominent local businessmen and even a few celebrities.’
‘So where do I fit into this, exactly?’
‘You must have the Finns’ complete itinerary for the time they were in Northern Ireland. If we could run through that with you and eliminate the possibility that they went to Kinkaid, then, well, we can completely close the book on that part of the case.’
‘What’ll that prove?’
‘It’ll prove that Lily came over here on a false lead and that her death is unrelated to the anonymous tip she picked up at the Financial Times.’
Tony looked puzzled. ‘I’m not following your logic, Sean. She gets an anonymous tip that the Finns are diddling little boys, so a huge conspiracy is put in motion to silence her by hiring a nearly 70-year-old castle caretaker to murder her in a dungeon?’
‘Uhm …’
Tony looked at McCrabban. ‘John, was this your idea?’
‘We sort of all came up with it together,’ he said.
‘Dear, oh dear,’ Tony said, getting up and rifling in his filing cabinet. He handed me the complete itinerary of the Finns’ visit to Belfast.
I looked through the itinerary. From their arrival at Belfast International Airport, to their departure from Belfast International Airport, they had had a packed schedule of factory visits, luncheons with businessmen and civil servants, visits to sites of historical interest (Carrick Castle, the Giant’s Causeway, etc.) and formal dinners. I handed the itinerary to Lawson and Crabbie.
‘As you can see, a pretty packed schedule, hardly time for satanic ceremonies and murders.’
‘What’s this on the night of the 6th? It says “Free: Entertainment”.’
I handed the schedule to McCrabban and Lawson.
And no
w it was Tony’s turn to look uncomfortable.
‘It was just a free evening they had. Really tight schedule. And they had the evening off. That was the evening of the theft, you remember?’
‘The theft was in the middle of the night, Tony. What were they doing earlier in the evening?’
‘How am I supposed to know?’ he asked. ‘It was their free night.’
‘Dear, oh dear, Tony, you used to be a better fibber back in the day,’ I said.
He sighed, shook his head and finished his whisky.
‘Don’t embarrass me, Sean. Can you ask those two to leave?’
‘Detective Sergeant McCrabban and Detective Constable Lawson will be remaining for the rest of this interview, Mr McIlroy.’
‘Oh Christ, don’t Mr McIlroy me, Sean, we’re mates. Colleagues, for crying out loud. And you know very well where the gentlemen went that night without me having to say it out loud. And it wasn’t no home for troubled youths.’
‘Some of them might be troubled, mightn’t they? And they are young. It was the Eagle’s Nest, wasn’t it, Tony?’
Tony shook his head in disgust. ‘If you knew all along, why all the games, Sean? I’m not some eejit off the street. I’m your mate. Or thought I was.’
‘Don’t take the huff, Tony. Just tell us the story. Whose idea was it? Who went?’ I asked.
Tony lit himself a cigarette.
‘Well, look, you met all four of them, right? You know the dramatis personae, don’t you?’
‘Yup.’
‘OK, so Mr Ek, he’s the older guy, not the boss guy, but the kind of fixer guy, he says to me that the kids – the two boys – are looking for –’ Tony began, but stopped when he saw that Lawson and McCrabban had taken out their notebooks and were writing down what he was saying in shorthand. ‘Come on lads! Is that really necessary? Now my name’s going to get sucked into this?’
‘They’re doing their job, Tony. Please continue.’
Tony shook his head. ‘So Stefan and Nicolas Lennätin are bored as shit and they’re looking for a little fun, so I suggested the Eagle’s Nest up the Knockagh Road. Mrs Dunwoody, you know? Nice lady. Good service. Bit pricey. But classy. So Ek says that sounds ideal and, much to my surprise, all four of them decide to go up there. Not just the two boys, but old Mr Laakso and Ek, as well as Stefan and Nicolas. We won’t fit in my car, but Ek has a car, so they follow me up to the Eagle’s Nest, I introduce them to Mrs Dunwoody, she says she’ll take care of them. The price of drinks in there is shocking, so instead of waiting at the bar, I go back to my Beemer and have a bit of a kip.’
‘And then what?’ I asked.
‘When they’re done, I take them back to the hotel, go to bed and I get a phone call from Mr Ek saying that someone has stolen Mr Laakso’s wallet from his hotel room. And I tell him to call the police and he calls you and we both arrive at more or less the same time.’
Lawson had his hand up in the air.
‘Yes, Lawson?’
‘Sorry, what’s the Eagle’s Nest? I haven’t heard of it,’ he asked, innocently.
‘It’s a brothel,’ I explained.
‘A what?’
‘A house of ill repute, a bordello, a bawdy house.’
Lawson looked surprised and a little scandalised, which was nothing short of adorable. ‘I thought that sort of place was illegal,’ he said.
‘Of course it’s illegal. How could it be legal? Jesus,’ Tony snapped.
‘So you took the Finns up to the brothel. Then what?’ I continued.
‘I took them to the brothel. I introduced them to Mrs Dunwoody and I went back out to the car.’
‘What time was that at?’
‘I don’t know. Nine, half nine, something like that?’
‘You didn’t happen to notice if you were being followed up to the brothel?’
‘Followed? What do you mean?’
‘I mean was someone following you?’
‘Well … yeah. Ek was following me in his car. He didn’t know where the place was and I told him to follow me.’
‘Was anyone following Mr Ek?’
‘No. I don’t think so … You mean the reporter?’
‘Yes. The reporter.’
‘Why would she?’
‘Because she thought you were up to no good. She’d rented a car and there was a lot of mileage on it.’
Tony thought about it for a few moments. ‘No, I’m pretty sure there was no one following us. That road’s fairly isolated up to the Eagle’s Nest itself. There was no one following us,’ he said, confidently.
I looked at Crabbie to see if he had any questions.
‘How long were they at the brothel?’ he asked.
‘An hour?’
‘Any complaints? Everyone happy?’
‘No complaints. Everyone happy.’
‘Tell me about the wallet. It was never really stolen at all, was it?’ I said.
Tony shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t. Some kind of practical joke by the twins on old Mr Laakso, I suspect.’
‘What was the power dynamic there? How come those boys could get away with something like that?’ I asked.
‘Well, as I understood it, Laakso is the CFO – the Chief Financial Officer – of Lennätin, basically the second in command of the whole operation. But he’s not family. It’s a family company, entirely privately owned. The CEO is old Mr Lennätin. His two sons are on the board of directors and the two grandsons, who’ve just turned 18, have also been appointed to the board. According to Mr Ek, this little trip was to give them some overseas experience.’
‘So the two boys can’t be fired?’
‘No, I mean technically Laakso was senior to them, but as they are Mr Lennätin’s grandchildren they’re pretty much untouchable.’
I thought about all of this for a minute.
‘When you were driving back home from the brothel did you notice any other cars at all on that long driveway road, Tony?’ I asked.
‘Nope. And you’re right, Duffy. That is a long driveway back to the main road. And there were no cars on it. She wasn’t on our tail, or if she was, she bloody lost us, not that we were going particularly fast.’
‘Any more questions, Crabbie? Lawson?’
They shook their heads.
I nodded, got to my feet. ‘We’ll need to check this with Mrs Dunwoody, but it looks as if there’s nothing along this tangent. You understand why we had to investigate it, though? Anonymous tip, keen young reporter, possible murder and that Mr Underhill does not look like any kind of killer to us.’
‘What about his history? Sex crimes? Anything like that?’ Tony asked.
‘Nothing like that. Widower. He was in the navy for thirty years. Couple of drunken brawls in the street, that’s about it.’
‘And the CCTV footage more or less rules out any third-party involvement, doesn’t it?’ Tony said.
I nodded.
‘So why pursue this angle of the case at all?’ Tony asked. ‘Waste of police resources, no? What’s your gaffer say about all this?’
‘Oh, he’s not too happy. We flew over to London. Didn’t have the budget for it. And Kenny Dalziel – remember that waste of space? – he’s probably going to make me pay for it out of my own pocket in the end.’
Tony nodded and an awkward silence drifted into the room.
‘Right, well, we’ll be heading on,’ I said.
Lawson and Crabbie made for the door.
‘Can I speak to you alone for a sec, Sean?’ Tony said.
I nodded at Crabbie. ‘See you in the lobby.’
When they were gone, Tony closed the door and sat on his desk in front of me.
‘You really embarrassed me there, Sean. Treating me like a civilian. Making me look like a fool in front of John McCrabban and young Lawson there. I wouldn’t have done that to you. We could have sorted this whole thing out over a drink or something. What’s with the heavy brigade?’ he said.
I acknowledged the truth of it. �
�I’m sorry, Tony. It’s just this case. It’s been odd. Something about it hasn’t felt right from the start.’
‘What?’
‘We made a few mistakes early on and we got humiliated by the medical examiner. And then there’s the eerie echo of that Lizzie Fitzpatrick case we talked about in London.’
‘The girl in the locked pub.’
‘Exactly. So I’m thinking maybe Lily’s death was suspicious and then the pathologist tells me that we screwed up the time of death and somebody moved the body and then we find out that Lily was working on some kind of paedophile case. You’d be seeing conspiracies, too,’ I said.
‘You have to follow the leads, Sean,’ Tony said. ‘You’re a pro. It’s nothing personal, I know that.’
‘Thanks, Tony.’
Tony offered me his hand. ‘OK, mate. No worries.’
I shook the hand gratefully and Tony leaned in and gave me a sort of half hug.
‘We go back, Sean, don’t we?’
‘We do. And I’m glad you’re back in Ulster, even under these circumstances. I don’t have many friends, you know?’
‘I know,’ he said.
I took the cigars out of my jacket pocket and offered them back to him. ‘These must have cost a fortune; here, I’m not really a cigar smoker, anyway,’ I said.
‘Jesus! Don’t insult me even more! Keep the cigars. Look around you. Business is booming.’
‘Sure, Tony. And look, we’ll have that drink sometime, OK?’
I found Crabbie and Lawson out in Reception. Donna had now finished Cosmopolitan magazine and the receptionist had painted and dried her nails. Evidently the phone hadn’t rung and no new clients had appeared the whole time we’d been in Tony’s office. This made me feel even guiltier about the cigars and I gave them to McCrabban in the Beemer on the way home, telling him that I was still trying to cut down on my tobacco.
16: THE BROTHEL
Trying to quit tobacco, possibly, but I was still a big fan of imported Moroccan hash which brave smugglers risked life and limb to bring in from Marrakech only to have it taken from them by the customs or the paramilitaries, or me.
And hash only ever worked properly if you rolled it up in Virginia tobacco or shoved it into a cigar to make a blunt. That night I sat in the garden shed with the door open, smoking the hash and looking at the rain lash the back lawn.
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