Red Light

by Graham Masterton

  Katie was suddenly conscious of how messy her hair was and she gave it two or three tugs to try and tidy it. Fionnuala widened her eyes and kept on smiling, as if to reassure her that she looked grand and not to worry about it.

  Katie cleared her throat and said, ‘The victim – the victim is an African male of indeterminate age who appears to have been fatally injured by gunshot wounds, although we’ll have to wait for the coroner to establish the precise cause of death.’

  ‘His fecking head was blown off,’ said Dan, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘That would be a precise cause of death for most people, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘For all we know, he may have already been dead before he was shot,’ said Katie. ‘So, like I say, we’re waiting for the coroner.’

  ‘There was a girl locked in with the body,’ said Fionnuala. ‘Do you know who she was? Is she a suspect?’

  ‘An African female was discovered in the flat along with the victim. She wasn’t locked in, but it appears that she had been there ever since he was killed.’

  ‘How long was that?’

  ‘We don’t know for certain, but seventy-two hours at least, possibly longer.’

  ‘If she wasn’t locked in, why didn’t she try to get out of there? The body must have been bealing by then!’

  ‘Again, we don’t know for sure.’

  ‘When you say “African”, what was she?’ asked Dan. ‘Nigerian? Senegalese? Somali?’

  ‘We haven’t established that, either. She’s deeply traumatized, as you can imagine, and we haven’t had the opportunity to interview her yet. We will, though, when she’s up to it.’

  ‘Did she actually witness the victim being shot?’ asked Branna.

  Katie thought: Good question, girl. But in reply she said, ‘We don’t have any way of knowing at the moment, not until she talks to us.’

  She paused, and made a point of looking straight at Fionnuala’s cameraman. ‘If you saw or heard anything unusual around Lower Shandon Street in the past three or four days, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Just dial 021 452 2000. Your identity will be kept secret and it doesn’t matter if you think it was important or not, it’s surprising what small bits and pieces of information can help us to make an arrest.’

  ‘This African girl,’ Branna persisted. ‘Was she a prostitute?’

  Jesus, aren’t you the blunt one, thought Katie. She turned back to Branna and said, ‘We don’t yet know who she is or where she came from, and so we have no idea if she was a sex worker or not.’

  ‘She was almost naked when she was found.’

  ‘Branna, in this job we come across plenty of people with their pants down. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sex workers.’

  ‘But that will be one of your lines of inquiry?’

  Katie gave her a brief, uncommunicative smile. ‘As soon as we have any firm information, we’ll be sure to pass it on to you.’

  ‘But it is a major problem in Cork, isn’t it? Vice, and prostitution? I mean, some people are calling Cork the sex-trade centre of Ireland.’

  ‘That’s all for now, Branna,’ said Katie. ‘We’ll be holding a full media conference at Anglesea Street when we have something concrete to tell you.’

  ‘There’s at least ten brothels operating in the city centre alone, though, right this minute while we’re talking, and more than a hundred prostitutes, easy. I mean, what are you doing about them?’

  Katie went over to Branna, took her arm, and drew her aside.

  ‘Branna, if you want to talk to me about vice, then you’re welcome to make an appointment and come to Anglesea Street and we’ll talk about vice. Right now, I’m dealing with a violent homicide and I’m not going to stand here in the street speculating who might have done it or whether it’s connected with the sex trade.’

  ‘But –’ Branna began, but Katie lifted a finger to shush her.

  ‘How long have you been with the Echo?’

  ‘A week. Well, last week and yesterday, and this morning.’

  ‘I wish you the best of luck, but just remember that this is Cork, not Limerick, or Dublin, and you’re not Donal Macintyre. Get to know your contacts first, build up some trust. Then you can start crusading.’

  Branna’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘I’m sorry, superintendent. I didn’t mean to overstep the mark, like.’

  ‘That’s all right. And don’t worry. I’m as much concerned about the vice in this city as you are. But it isn’t easy to put a stop to it, for a whole lot of different reasons, and if you come and talk to me about it I’ll tell you why.’

  Fionnuala Sweeney came up to Katie and said, ‘Sorry, superintendent. Can we just do a couple of quick reaction shots?’

  ‘How do you want me?’ asked Katie. ‘Grinning or grim?’

  ‘Oh, just your normal expression, please.’

  For a brief moment, Katie closed her eyes and thought: My normal expression, what in the name of all that’s holy is that? Martyred? Disillusioned? Exhausted?

  She returned to her desk at Anglesea Street, carrying a skinny latte and an iced doughnut, as well as a green manila folder of case notes tucked under her arm. She hadn’t even sat down when her mobile rang. And it’s no, nay, never – no, nay never no more—

  ‘John?’ she said, clearing a space on her desk. ‘Hold on a moment, John.’ Then, ‘How did it go with ErinChem?’

  Detective O’Donovan appeared in her open doorway but she lifted her hand to indicate that she needed a few minutes before she could talk to him.

  John sounded depressed. ‘How do you think it went?’

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t they want you? I thought you would have been perfect.’

  ‘Well, that was the word they used.’

  ‘What? Perfect?’

  ‘Come on, Katie, you know I’m a genius! They did a whole lot more than give me the job. They want me to set up and run a whole new internet marketing division.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No, you heard it here first! They’re giving me a free hand to hire my own team of web designers, data analysts, product managers, you name it. My official title will be International Online Sales Director.’

  ‘John, I’m so, so pleased for you. Well, I’m pleased for me, too. I can’t pretend that I’m not.’

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, if it hadn’t been for you –’

  ‘What I did is totally beside the point. They wouldn’t have hired you if they hadn’t thought you were exactly the kind of person they were looking for. You have it all, John, you know that. You have the experience. You have the talent. You have those chocolate-brown eyes.’

  ‘Careful, I won’t be able to get my head out of the door.’

  ‘We’ll have to celebrate,’ said Katie. ‘But not tonight, I’m afraid. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s been a homicide on Lower Shandon Street, so I’ll probably be working very late tonight. Well, no, the victim’s body was discovered this morning, but it’s probably been there for three or four days. Yes. Don’t ask. No. Faugh. I can still smell it now.’

  ‘So what time can I expect you home?’ John asked her.

  ‘I don’t know for sure. But don’t wait up. I love you, and congratulations. Oh – and by the way – how much are they paying you?’

  ‘Eighty k basic, but with excellent bonuses, and if the online sales do really well, the sky’s the limit.’

  ‘I love you, John. You’ve made my day.’

  ‘I love you, too, detective superintendent.’

  Katie put her phone down. She was so pleased that she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, even when Detective O’Donovan came back in. He looked at her quizzically, but said nothing. She had always made it clear that her personal life was private. Everybody at Anglesea Street knew about John Meagher, of course, and Katie’s relationship with him was the subject of daily gossip in the canteen, but nobody would have dared ask her to her face how she and John were getting along together.


  John Meagher had been born and brought up in Cork, but he had emigrated to America and up until three years ago had been running a successful dot.com pharmaceutical business in San Francisco. Then his father had suddenly passed away, and he had been called back to Knocknadeenly, north of Cork, to take care of his elderly mother and to run the family farm. Because he was the oldest, the rest of the Meaghers had expected it of him, and he hadn’t felt able to refuse.

  A series of murders had brought Katie to Knocknadeenly, and that was when she had met John for the first time. In the rain, and the mud, under the most stressful of circumstances. But after Katie’s first husband, Paul, had died, she and John had started an affair, and their affair had gradually grown fiercer, and stronger, and more passionate.

  ‘You’re my Greek god,’ she had written to him in a note – because that was what he reminded her of, with his curly black hair and his straight nose and his muscles that had been sculpted by months of ploughing and raking and toting bales of hay.

  But no matter how hard John worked, eking a living out of the farm had been a losing battle, even before the recession. When the Irish economy collapsed, John had been forced to sell the farm for a loss. He had planned to go back to the United States and join some of his friends in a new online pharmacy business, and he had asked Katie to resign from An Garda Síochána and come with him. He had even arranged a job for her with Pinkerton’s detective agency.

  Katie’s father had advised her to go. You have only the one life, girl. Don’t end up a miserable old spinster with nobody but cats for company. But she had found it impossible to think about quitting the senior position that she had struggled so hard to achieve. More than that, she felt that she had sworn to give her life to protecting the people of Cork, and what was she going to do, turn her back on them, just because she had fallen in love?

  She had called Aidan Tierney, the chief executive officer of ErinChem, the pharmaceutical company out at Ringaskiddy, and they had met for lunch at Isaac’s. Only a few months before, Katie had helped to keep Aidan’s daughter Sinéad out of the courts when she was arrested along with several other teenagers for organized shoplifting in Penneys, of all places. The clothes in Penneys were so cheap they were practically giving them away anyhow. Aidan had been toying with the idea of setting up an online sales division at ErinChem, and Katie had suggested that John might be just the man to do it for them.

  Now John could stay in Ireland, with a job that he was really good at, and a respectable income, and Katie could stay at Anglesea Street. She felt so happy she could have gone for a drink, instead of a lukewarm latte from Costa Coffee.

  ‘Ma’am?’ said Detective O’Donovan, at last.

  ‘Sorry, Patrick, yes, what is it?’

  ‘You’re smiling, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes, detective, I’m smiling. Is that a crime?’

  ‘No, ma’am. Just to let you know that we interviewed the staff in Nolan’s the butcher’s and the African restaurant opposite. One of the lads who works in the butcher’s says he was laying out sausages in the window on Friday morning when this black feller comes past in this bright purple suit. The lad looks up at him and the black feller looks back, and he’s wearing a beard. The black feller, not the lad.’

  ‘Well, our victim had a beard, but he didn’t have a purple suit. In fact he didn’t have any clothes at all. Did the boy remember what time this was?’

  ‘About midday, he said. But a few minutes later, just before they opened, he sees a black woman walk past, too.’

  ‘That’s not unusual for Lower Shandon Street. If you stand there long enough, half of Africa’s going to walk past you.’

  ‘He only noticed her because of what she was wearing,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘Like, the African women, they’re usually wearing some kind of wrapping, what do they call them, abayas, and a headscarf. And I’m not being racist or nothing but most of them seem to have arses the size of Cork and they walk very slow and deliberate like they own the place. I was trying to get past one of them in Penneys the other day and it was like trying to push my way in through a fecking turnstile at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.’

  ‘Patrick,’ Katie admonished him.

  ‘Well, yes, no, I know I shouldn’t say that, but you know. It’s like it’s a national characteristic, like.’ He held out both hands as if he were measuring something about four feet wide.

  ‘But this girl—?’

  ‘This girl was skinny, and all dressed in black. Black jeans and a black jacket, with a black scarf tied around her head. He said she was very black herself, like, but very pretty. That Rihanna, that’s who he said she reminded him of.’

  ‘Okay, I see. Did he see where either of them went?’

  ‘After the girl had gone by, he stepped out into the street to take another look at her, but she was gone. So either she was a real quick walker, because it’s all uphill there, or else she disappeared into one of the shops.’

  ‘How about the man in the purple suit?’

  ‘No sign of him, neither.’

  Katie sat down. The pale sun that had come out briefly had been swallowed up behind the clouds again and her office became so gloomy that she was tempted to tell O’Donovan to switch on the overheard light. A few drops of rain sprinkled against the window.

  ‘Did the butcher boy see if the girl was carrying anything? Like a bag, or a sack? Maybe a golf bag, something like that?’

  ‘If he did, he didn’t say so. You’re thinking how she got the shotgun into the premises, if it was her who did it?’

  ‘Well, of course. And you should have thought of that.’

  ‘I’ll go back and ask him. I have to go back anyway because one of the fellers who works in the African restaurant saw the feller in the purple suit and he thinks the cook there knows who he is, but the cook hadn’t come on for his shift yet and the feller didn’t know where he lives.’

  ‘Okay, Patrick, if you can do that, please. Anybody else see them? The girl, or the purple suit man?’

  ‘If they did, they’re not saying. But Horgan’s asking around the various African communities to see if anybody knows who they are. There can’t be too many black fellers strutting around in purple suits now, can there? And if we don’t have any luck there, we’ll canvas the menswear shops and the tailors’.’

  Katie said, ‘I’ll have a word with Maeve Twomey.’ Maeve Twomey was her ethnic liaison officer and closely in touch with the various immigrant groups who had settled in Cork, especially the Poles and the Lithuanians and the Africans. ‘She can talk to Emeka Ikebuasi, he’s the big cheese in the Nigerian community. And that Somali, whatever his name is. Geedi something. The one who keeps jiggling up and down while he’s talking to you like he’s doing a rain dance.’

  ‘A rain dance, that’s rich. In Cork, how would you ever know if it had worked or not?’

  As if to emphasize his point, rain lashed against the window, hard and brittle, and the hooded crows on the car parked opposite took to the air, as if at last they had lost their patience with being rained on.

  Once O’Donovan had gone, Katie eased the lid off her coffee and opened the manila folder in front of her. This contained a list of all the charges they had brought against Michael Gerrety relating to his sex website, Cork Fantasy Girls, as well as his financial connections to at least seven brothels and three so-called massage parlours and fitness clubs, including the notorious Nightingale Club on Grafton Street.

  Gerrety had contended that he had done nothing legally or morally wrong. By allowing girls to advertise on his website, he said, he was making sure that their business was all out in the open and they were much safer than if they had been obliged to rely on cards in newsagents’ windows or small ads in the local papers, or walking the streets.

  Women’s and immigrants’ support groups in Cork had combined together to start a campaign called Turn Off The Red Light, the aim of which was to eradicate local prostitution and the trafficking of women for sex. In retalia
tion, Gerrety had launched Give It The Green Light, to fight for the decriminalization of sex work.

  Give It The Green Light had produced posters of pretty, smiling women saying ‘I’m Happy In My Job – And I’m a Sex Worker’. If Gerrety hadn’t been making so much money out of prostitution, Katie could almost have believed that he was sincere.

  She finished reading through the file and sat back. She knew that advertising brothels and prostitution was prohibited by the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act of 1994. But if a girl didn’t specifically offer sex on Gerrety’s website, was her advertisement in breach of the law?

  And what if a man answered the girl’s advertisement and had sex with her, could Gerrety be said to be living off immoral earnings, since he charged her 200 euros a month to post it? Or could he protest that what two people decided to do together once they had met on a social website had nothing to do with him whatsoever? You might just as well prosecute an online dating agency for living off immoral earnings. Or the Examiner even, for running a lonely hearts column.

  It was Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll who had insisted on charges being brought against Michael Gerrety. He was a deeply religious man and he despised Gerrety with a passion – he almost considered his disdain for the laws of brothel-keeping to be a personal insult. In Katie’s opinion, though, they had charged Gerrety prematurely, before they had gathered enough evidence that would stand up in court, and on reflection Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll had been inclined to agree with her. With his approval, Katie had set up Operation Rocker to dig out even more substantial proof that Gerrety was breaking the law.

  She took her cup of coffee to the window and stared out of it for a long time. Only one street away she could see the tall greenish tower of The Elysian. It was seventeen storeys high and the tallest building in the whole of Ireland. It had been built in the boom days of the Celtic Tiger, before the financial crash of 2008, and even now almost half of its apartments and offices were still empty. The people of Cork had been quick to nickname it ‘The Idle Tower’, after The Idle Hour pub nearby. But there was one apartment that she knew was occupied, right at the very top, with a commanding view of the whole of the city, and that was where Michael Gerrety lived.