‘Michael Gerrety for one deserves a lot more leeway. His Green Light campaign has been given considerable support from charities and social workers and from sex workers themselves. He’s trying hard to take the stigma out of sex work, and from our point of view that can only be helpful. It means less women forced into prostitution. It means less violence and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. People will always sell and buy sex, no matter what we do. If we harass men like Michael Gerrety, Katie, we’ll only succeed in driving the sex trade back underground, where it’s so much harder to keep an eye on it.’
Katie said, ‘You really believe that?’
‘Yes, I do. And that’s why I’m cancelling Operation Rocker.’
Katie stood up. ‘I’ll leave that file with you, anyway. I have at least twenty more major cases to go over with you, but I think we can leave them till Monday.’
‘I’m quite prepared to go over them now. The sooner I catch up, the better.’
‘Well, I agree, but you’ve just dropped a bombshell on me and I need to go away and think about it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re upset? This is purely a policy decision, Katie, nothing to do with personal feelings.’
‘It’s a policy decision that I totally disagree with, Bryan. Michael Gerrety is a conniving manipulative bully and a con man, and if you’re seriously talking about letting him carry out his sex business unmolested, then you’re more of a chauvinistic meb than I thought you were.’
Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy stood with his mouth open, his face growing gradually redder. For a split second, Katie thought that he was going to shout at her. Then, however, he took his hands out of his pockets and started clapping her, slow and mocking.
‘Good girl! Well done! If there’s one thing I like, it’s a woman who’s brave enough to speak her mind, even if it is all rubbish!
He stopped clapping and came up to her, taking hold of her elbow, although she immediately twisted it away.
‘I can understand that you’re angry and disappointed, Katie. I would be, too, if I was you. So, yes, let’s leave the rest of the catching up until Monday. You can go home now and vent your spleen on some hoovering, or washing the curtains, or some such. I’ll see you when you’ve thought about what I’ve said, and realized the sense of it.’
Katie took a deep breath, opened the door and left the office without saying anything. She was so angry that she could have kicked the wall as she walked along the corridor. She was so angry that she could have burst into tears. But she did neither. Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy had called her a bangharda, which was the outdated name for a female garda, and the last thing she wanted to do was give him the satisfaction of proving him right.
She met Eugene Ó Béara in The Ovens in Oliver Plunkett Street. He was sitting in a booth in the far corner of the bar with a half-finished pint of Guinness in front of him, talking to a shaven-headed young man in a green polo shirt. Eugene Ó Béara himself hadn’t changed at all since Katie had last met him, although his curly hair, once chestnut, was now almost completely grey, and badly in need of a trim. He reminded Katie of Dylan Thomas, the poet, because even at the age of forty he had the face of a very spoiled baby.
He was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt that had seen better days and a Blackpool GAA tie. As Katie came across the bar he lifted his left wrist and peered down at his large Rolex wristwatch.
‘Sorry I’m a little late,’ said Katie.
‘Budge up, Micky,’ said Eugene. ‘Let the lady sit down.’
The shaven-headed young man shifted himself along the bench seat and Katie sat down beside him.
‘Detective Superintendent Maguire, this is Micky Corcoran. Micky, this is the celebrated Katie Maguire, the bane of all wrongdoers everywhere. You’ll be joining us in a scoop, detective superintendent, especially since you’ll be treating us?’
‘I’ll just have a Finches rasa,’ said Katie. She took a twenty-euro note out of her purse and handed it over. ‘You two have whatever you want.’
Micky Corcoran took the note and stood up. He had acne-pitted cheeks and a long pointed nose and two silver studs in his left earlobe. As he went to fetch the drinks he gave Katie a sideways look over his shoulder and smirked at her, as if there was something about her that amused him.
‘Why is it that whenever the shades want to know anything about illegally acquired weapons they always come to me?’ asked Eugene. ‘Those days are over now. The last thing I blew up was a balloon for my daughter’s birthday party. We have beaten our AK-47s into ploughshares and our mortars into pruning hooks.’
‘Oh yes, and pigs might recite the Lord’s Prayer.’
Eugene’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have the distinct feeling that you’re a little out of sorts today for some reason.’
‘Well, your distinct feeling is quite correct, but it has nothing at all to do with the business in hand.’
‘If somebody’s upset you, detective superintendent, I have plenty of friends who could soften their cough.’
‘Like I told you on the phone, I’m only interested in one sort of weapon. It’s a small handgun that can fire shotgun shells. From what our witness has told us about it, it can only fire one round at a time.’
Micky Corcoran came back with the drinks. He gave Katie a glass with two drinking straws in it, as well as her bottle of raspberry cordial. ‘I thought you’d want to drink it civilized, like.’
‘Micky will know about your gun,’ said Eugene. ‘Micky, do you know of a handgun that can take shotgun shells, but it’s only a single shooter?’
Micky swigged Satzenbrau lager out of the bottle. ‘Yeah, for sure,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘That’ll be your Pocket Shotgun. It’s made by Heizer Defense in America and it only went on sale at the end of 2013, so there’s not too many of them around yet. It’s made of stainless steel or titanium but it’s so fecking small that you can carry it in the pocket of your cax and nobody would even guess you’d got it on you. The only trouble is the recoil. Because it’s so small it’s got a kick like a fecking donkey.’
‘Where could I get hold of one?’
‘Has somebody upset you that much?’ grinned Eugene.
‘A handgun like that could have been used in a homicide,’ said Katie. ‘If I can find out where the perpetrator got it from, then it could help me to find out who they are. And if there’s so few of them on the market, like you say …’
Micky took another swig of lager and screwed up his face in concentration. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be dropping nobody into the shite, like.’
‘I’m not after the person who supplied the gun,’ said Katie. ‘I just want to know who he supplied it to.’
Micky turned to Eugene. Eugene shrugged and said, ‘She’s a woman of her word, Micky. I’ll give her that. But you don’t want to be giving away valuable information like that for nothing, do you?’
Katie opened her purse again and took out two fifty-euro notes. Micky looked at Eugene, but Eugene stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head. Katie took out another two fifties.
‘One more and I think you’re there,’ said Eugene.
Katie held out five fifties. Eugene reached across the table and took them. He gave two to Micky and tucked the other three in the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘Go on, Micky,’ he told him. ‘Tell her who’s been flogging them guns.’
‘Colin Cleary,’ said Micky. ‘He showed me one about three months ago and asked me if I was interested, like, but I wasn’t really. That’s a gun for protecting yourself if you’re worried that somebody’s got it in for you, or else for getting your revenge on somebody close up and personal. I don’t know where the feck Colin gets them from, but you know what he’s like, he can get you a fecking tank if you want one.’
‘I thought Colin Cleary had gone out of the gun-running business years ago,’ said Katie. ‘He retired, didn’t he, and opened up that garden centre in Mallow?’
‘O
h, he’s still doing that. If it’s weedkiller you want, or tomato plants, then Colin’s your man. But he never lost touch with his contacts in America, or the Middle East.’
‘He’s a patriot, Colin, like me,’ said Eugene. ‘In spite of all this Good Friday shite, we’re still looking forward to the day.’
Katie walked back to Anglesea Street, but she didn’t return to her office. Instead, she went directly to the car park and climbed into her car. She took out her mobile phone and dialled Nifty 50 to find the number for Colin Cleary’s garden centre.
‘Cleary’s Horticulture,’ a woman answered when she was put through.
‘Is Colin Cleary there?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Maguire’s Fertilizer. He asked me to call him.’
‘He’s away till Monday. Somewhere in the UK. Birmingham, I think. I can give you his mobile number.’
‘Thanks.’
Katie jotted down Colin Cleary’s mobile number and then rang it. As she waited for an answer, she noticed that seven or eight hooded crows had gathered on the roof of the building overlooking the car park. She knew that it was ridiculously superstitious, but she had always taken a gathering of hooded crows to be an omen of ill fortune.
Colin Cleary’s phone rang and rang but he didn’t answer it. Eventually Katie gave up. She would try again later, but she didn’t hold out much hope that he would pick up. A man like Colin Cleary would always be suspicious of a number he didn’t know.
She started the engine and backed out of the car park and headed for home.
Twenty-nine
When they arrived at her father’s house it was Moirin who answered the door. She was wearing a startling summer dress with green and orange geometric patterns on it and which was six inches too short for a woman of her age.
‘Well, now, it’s you!’ she said, as if she had been expecting somebody else and was disappointed to see that it was Katie and John.
‘How are you, Moirin?’ said Katie, stepping into the hallway. They exchanged air-blown kisses. Moirin’s hair was much shorter and spikier than the last time Katie had seen her, and Katie thought she was looking sharper and older, even though she was only in her mid-thirties.
‘John, it is John, isn’t it?’ said Moirin. ‘I lose track with Katie.’
‘I’ve had the one husband, Paul, who’s passed away, and then John,’ Katie retorted. ‘Is that too many to remember, or shall I write them down for you?’
‘Come on through,’ said Moirin, closing the front door. Katie’s father lived in a tall, green-painted Victorian house in Monkstown, on the opposite side of the harbour from Katie, who lived in Cobh. Her mother had died four years ago and Katie had repeatedly urged her father to sell up and move to somewhere smaller and easier to maintain, but he had told her that his memories were here. In winter he said he could still picture her mother sitting on the second-to-bottom stair to put her boots on, and in summer he could leave the kitchen door open and imagine that she was still out in the garden, tending to her hollyhocks.
Although the house smelled old, it had aired out during the summer and no longer smelled so damp. When they walked through into the living room, they found vases of fresh yellow roses and gladioli all around and the furniture was gleaming with polish. Over the fireplace hung a dark oil painting of a group of people trying to find their way through a forest, which Katie had always thought rather sinister, but even this had a shine to it this morning and the people looked cheerful rather than lost. An appetizing smell of herby roast chicken was wafting through from the kitchen.
Katie’s father came into the living room, holding Siobhán’s hand.
‘Katie, darling!’ he greeted her. ‘And John!’
Katie went over and kissed him. She was pleased to see how much better he looked. His white hair was neatly trimmed and although he was still thin and bony he seemed to have put on weight, and he was wearing a freshly pressed tattersall shirt.
‘Siobhán, how are you, sweetheart?’
Siobhán was the third of the seven McCarthy sisters, and she looked very much like her father had looked when he was younger. She was round-faced and rosy-cheeked and green-eyed, with abundant red curls. She used to have innumerable boyfriends, and would flirt madly with any man who would give her the time of day. Last year, however, she had been struck violently on the head with a hammer by a jealous wife, which had left her brain-damaged. She was still sweet, and still funny, but now she had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old child.
‘Katie!’ she said, and hugged her. ‘John! It’s like Christmas!’
‘How are you, Siobhán? I love your pink dress!’
‘It’s pink,’ said Siobhán. ‘Ailish and me went to Penneys to buy it!’
‘What have you been doing with yourself, Siobhán? Have you been anywhere nice lately? Has Moirin taken you down to the beach?’
‘Yes,’ snapped Moirin. ‘Moirin has taken her down to the beach, and to Tarzan Land in Perk’s Entertainment Centre, and for walks every day in Green Park even when it’s raining. She adores the maritime mural, don’t you Siobhán? It’s her favourite.’
‘I like the mermaids,’ said Siobhán. ‘And I like the fishing men, too, and the fish. And I like the crabs.’
Now they were joined from the kitchen by Ailish, and Moirin’s husband, Kevin. Katie had found Ailish through a local employment agency. She kept house for Katie’s father, and cooked for him, and kept him company. She was a pretty, plump woman, with her grey hair tightly plaited, which made her look German.
Kevin seemed to be as despondent as ever. He was round-shouldered, with thick glasses and thinning hair, and none of his facial features seemed to belong to each other, like Mr Potato Head. He was wearing a new blue short-sleeved shirt that still had the creases in it from being taken out of the packet. Presumably Moirin had been too busy to iron it for him, thought Katie.
They all sat down in the living room. Katie’s father and Ailish went into the kitchen and they heard a pop. Shortly afterwards Ailish came back in, carrying a tray with glasses of champagne.
‘Hey, is this some kind of special occasion?’ said John.
‘Of course it is,’ said Katie’s father. ‘You’ve found yourself a job and you’ll be staying here in Cork and you’ve made Katie very happy.’
‘Well, I’m happy, too,’ said John. ‘Katie’s a very special person. One in a million, and I love her very much.’ He reached across the sofa and took hold of her hand.
When he had handed everybody a glass of champagne, however, Katie’s father said, ‘But … there’s another reason I’ve asked you all here today, and that’s to make an announcement.’
‘At last!’ said Moirin. ‘You’re selling this house! Hallelujah! Oh – so long as you don’t expect to move in with me and Kevin! We’ve got enough of a houseful with Nona and Tommy, not to mention Siobhán.’
‘I can arrange the sale for you, Mr McCarthy,’ Kevin volunteered in his flat, expressionless voice. ‘The market’s very slow at the moment, but I’m sure I can get you a decent price. How much are you thinking of asking?’
Katie’s father smiled and shook his head. ‘That’s not what I was going to announce. I’m not selling up. I’ve been living in this house too long to think of moving, and it has too many memories for me. Of you, of your mother.’
‘Then what?’ demanded Moirin.
‘Moirin,’ said Katie. ‘Let the poor man get a word in edgeways!’
Katie’s father raised his glass and turned to Ailish, laying his hand on her shoulder. ‘My announcement is – Ailish and me, we’re going to be married.’
‘Oh, Dad!’ said Katie. ‘That’s wonderful! I can’t believe it! You’re actually going to get married? When?’
‘Well done, sir,’ said John, lifting his glass. ‘You two guys deserve each other.’
Siobhán said, ‘What’s happening? Why is everybody so excited?’
‘Dad’s going to get married to Ailish,’ said
Moirin. ‘You’re going to have a new mummy now.’
‘But I don’t want a new mummy! I want my proper mummy!’
‘Siobhán, darling, I’m not going to be taking the place of your proper mummy,’ said Ailish. ‘Nobody could ever do that. It’s just that your dad and I love each other, and we want to spend the rest of our lives living together, as husband and wife.’
Moirin put her arms around Siobhán and hugged her. ‘It’s all right, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Don’t get yourself upset.’ Then she turned to her father and said, ‘You could have broken it to her gently, for the love of God. Springing it on her like that! You could have broken it gently to all of us!’
‘Moirin,’ said her father, ‘I thought you might be pleased for us.’
‘Well, it’s very plain that you’re pleased, you and Ailish, but what about your daughters, the daughters you had with your previous wife, who you say that you miss so much?’
‘Moirin,’ said Katie. ‘Will you shut your mouth for once? Dad’s happy, and that’s what’s important, not what you think. Don’t you dare spoil this for him. Come on, raise your glass for him and Ailish, and let’s wish them well.’
‘You seriously expect me to drink a toast to us losing our inheritance?’
‘What? What inheritance? What are you talking about, Moirin? Dad’s found somebody to look after him, somebody he loves very much, and he’s smiling again. Aren’t you pleased about that?’
‘What do you mean, “what inheritance?”’ said Moirin. Siobhán was sobbing now, and making whooping-cough noises whenever she breathed in. ‘What do you think will happen when Dad passes away? Who do you think this house will go to? It won’t be us, will it? It won’t be sold off and divided between his daughters, will it? Oh no, because there’ll be a new owner, Dad’s not-so-grieving widow, and who knows how much longer she’s going to live here, and who she’ll pass it on to when she goes, and who knows when that will be?’
Katie’s father put down his glass of champagne. ‘How can you say such a thing, Moirin? Is that what you really believe – that when I die I’m going to leave you nothing? I invited you here today to share my new life, not to squabble about my death.’
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