Red Light

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Instead of that, you killed a perfectly innocent and happy woman. She was somebody’s mother and even more than that, she was soon to be somebody’s wife.’

  ‘That was hardly our fault,’ said Ronan Kelly out of his slit of a mouth. ‘How were we to know that you weren’t driving your own car? It’s not as though we’re fecking psychic.’

  ‘So you admit it?’

  ‘I’m not saying nothing. We might have done it and we might not. I thought you said this was just an informal discussion, anyway. Testing the water, like. Seeing where we stand.’

  ‘There’s no question where you two will be standing and that’s in the dock. What were you planning to do about Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán? She was the one who first told me that you were taking money to look the other way.’

  ‘What does it matter? We made a right hames of it, any road.’

  ‘We were going to do the same to her,’ put in Billy Daly. ‘The same only different, like.’

  ‘I fecking told you to shut your fecking trap,’ said Ronan Kelly.

  ‘We have CCTV evidence of you stealing the Nissan X-Trail from Nolan’s Construction,’ said Katie. ‘We have forensic evidence that it was the Nissan that collided with the rear of my car. That was done deliberately, so we’re not just talking manslaughter.’

  She opened a folder in front of her. ‘Not only that, we have witness statements that confirm that you were paid substantial sums of money by the late Desmond O’Leary on behalf of Michael Gerrety in order not to interfere with any of his trafficking of girls under the age of legal consent or illegal immigrants. You were treated to sexual favours, too, free of charge. We also have evidence that you knew of his drugging and beating of unwilling sex workers.’

  Both gardaí sat silent for a while, staring down at the table in front of them like two admonished schoolboys. In reality, Katie had no substantive evidence that the money that Mister Dessie had given them had come from Michael Gerrety, even though it was highly likely. There was nothing in the folder in front of her except for a report on stolen farm machinery in Maglin. However, they would be facing a charge of unlawful homicide and she reckoned they would do anything to mitigate the punishment they would receive for that.

  Ronan Kelly frowned at Katie and he almost looked remorseful. Briseann an dúchair tri shúile an chat, she thought. A cat reveals its character in its eyes. If he wasn’t remorseful, then he must be bitterly regretful for having been so self-indulgent, and such an easy mark for Michael Gerrety’s bribery. Sitting here in this interview room, about to be charged with serious crimes, what had he got out of it, after all? Some money, which had all been spent, and some drunken sex, which was all over and washed off. A tattoo, too, which would make him an obvious target in prison.

  ‘If I tell you a few things, give you some leads, like, would that make it any easier on us?’ he asked.

  ‘It depends on how useful they turned out to be, these leads.’

  ‘Well, I know you’ve been after Michael Gerrety. I know about Operation Rocker, like, and how Molloy was after calling it off, and how you weren’t exactly delighted.’

  ‘Word gets around, doesn’t it?’ said Katie.

  ‘Bryan Molloy and Michael Gerrety have known each other for years. I don’t think they’ve ever made a secret of it. Michael Gerrety started off his sex business in Limerick, remember, when Molloy was just a sergeant. He gave Molloy regular kickbacks to keep the law off his doorstep, and that’s how his businesses did so well.

  ‘He’s been paying him ever since. I don’t know how much, but a fair heap, I’d say. In return, Molloy uses his contacts in Dublin to put pressure on the politicians to change the law about sex workers. Gerrety thought that Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll was one almighty pain in the arse, and when Molloy was appointed to replace him he thought that all of his Christmases had come at once.’

  ‘Have you any proof at all that Michael Gerrety has been bribing Bryan Molloy?’ asked Katie. ‘Any evidence that would hold up in court?’

  Ronan Kelly turned to Billy Daly. Billy Daly rasied one eyebrow and then he leaned over and whispered something in Ronan Kelly’s ear. Ronan Kelly listened, and nodded, and then he turned back to Katie and said, ‘It depends.’

  ‘It depends on what offences I charge you both with, is that what you mean?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve got and I’ll tell you what concessions I might make,’ said Katie.

  At the back of her mind, she was seething with anger and hatred for these two men. They had killed Ailish, and they had intended to kill her, and they had destroyed her father’s happiness forever. Not only that, they had dragged the honour of An Garda Síochána through the dirt, and if it wasn’t for the Garda oath of attestation that she had taken she would have quit her job and gone to America with John.

  In spite of that, her training and her experience kept the door to the back of her mind firmly closed. Showing how angry she was would only be counterproductive. She wanted Michael Gerrety, and the only way to get him was to keep calm – almost disinterested.

  ‘They took my phone off me,’ said Ronan Kelly. ‘They took my phone off me, but it’s all on there. Recorded, like.’

  ‘Okay …’ said Katie. ‘Patrick, would you be good enough to go and fetch Garda Kelly’s phone for him.’

  Detective O’Donovan left the room and Katie was left with Ronan Kelly and Billy Daly.

  ‘You might have got away with it if you hadn’t had all those drugs on you,’ she told them.

  ‘We didn’t have any choice, did we? We hardly had any money between us, so we were going to sell the stuff to keep us going.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Off of one drugs bust and another, over the past year or so,’ said Ronan Kelly. ‘Like we would hand in about a half of what we seized and keep the rest. We sold a lot of it off, but we still had a fair bit left. Maybe ten or eleven thousand euros’ worth. This is totally off the record, mind, and if you ask me again on the record, I’ll deny it.’

  ‘Where were you going?’ Katie asked him.

  ‘Liverpool, to begin with. We’ve got a few friends there.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. If you want to know the truth, I think we’ve made a fecking pig’s dinner of everything. I’ve learned one thing: you don’t need much in the way of brains to commit any kind of crime, but you have to be a genius to get away with it.’

  Detective O’Donovan came back with Ronan Kelly’s mobile phone in a clear plastic evidence bag. He handed it over and Ronan Kelly shook it out of the bag and set it down on the table. He touched the voice memo button and sat back with his arms folded.

  They heard fiddle music playing faintly in the background, and a bodhrán drumming, and laughter, and glasses clinking. Then they heard Ronan Kelly saying, ‘We’ve sorted that (unclear) at Carroll’s Quay.’

  Another man’s voice said, ‘Yeah, Billy told us. That’s grand. We appreciate it.’

  ‘I mean, what a fecking eejit,’ said Ronan Kelly. ‘You don’t go into a knocking shop with your wallet stuffed full of cash. What do you expect is going to happen? Anyway, we persuaded the feller to drop his complaint.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’ asked the other man. ‘You’d be forced to tell his missus, something like that?’

  ‘We tried that,’ Ronan Kelly replied. ‘Trouble was, he said he wasn’t married. So we told him the girl was underage and we’d have to charge him with defilement.’

  The other man laughed. ‘Dowtcha boy! And you know what’s really, really funny about that?’

  ‘Go on, Dessie. What’s really, really funny about that?’

  ‘She is underage! She’s only fourteen!’

  ‘Oh, for feck’s sake, you (unclear).’

  ‘Anyway, Michael’s shown you his gratitude by giving you another hundred yoyos each.’

  ‘Tell him, any time. We’re only doing our job uphol
ding the law.’

  ‘As long as it’s the law according to Michael Gerrety, he’ll be happy.’

  Katie said, ‘Got him! You can turn that off now. I don’t need to hear any more.’

  Ronan Kelly reached forward to switch off his phone, but Detective O’Donovan snatched it away first and dropped it back into the evidence bag.

  ‘I’d be interested to know why you recorded that particular conversation,’ said Katie.

  ‘Oh, I recorded plenty of others, just to be on the safe side. You’re never quite sure where you are with people like Gerrety. But this is the only one that’s out-and-out incriminating.’

  ‘We have plenty of interviews with Dessie O’Leary on record,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘We won’t have any trouble matching the voice.’

  ‘So what’s it worth?’ asked Ronan Kelly. ‘I mean, that’s pure gold, as evidence, you have to admit. It’s only second best to having a video of Michael Gerrety handing us the money in person.’

  ‘It’s highly incriminating, I agree,’ said Katie. She could feel her heart beating harder, but she was trying to stay dispassionate. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll forget about the drugs.’

  ‘You’ll forget about the drugs? Is that all?’

  ‘Garda Kelly, I have to bring charges of corruption against you. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to charge Michael Gerrety with bribing you, would it, if I didn’t also charge you with accepting those bribes?’

  ‘Well, thanks for nothing at all,’ said Ronan Kelly. ‘Just don’t expect me to give you any other evidence.’

  ‘I won’t bring any charges of reckless endangerment,’ Katie told him.

  ‘What? How could we be guilty of reckless endangerment?’

  ‘You were aware that girls under the age of sixteen were being trafficked for sex. You did nothing to stop that trafficking. In fact, you facilitated it, even though you were police officers. I’d call that reckless endangerment, wouldn’t you? And the penalty for reckless endangerment is ten years inside.’

  Ronan Kelly said, ‘I’m not saying another word. I withdraw everything that I’ve said to you and I won’t give another interview without it being recorded and a lawyer present to represent me.’

  ‘I don’t honestly care,’ said Katie. ‘You’re a pair of worthless dirtbags and you’re going to be punished for killing a wonderful woman who didn’t deserve to die. You’ve given me everything I need and if I never see you or hear from you again, either of you, that will suit me very well indeed.’

  ‘Do you know what you are?’ said Ronan Kelly. ‘You’re a fecking witch, that’s what you are. We shouldn’t have tried to make you crash your car. We should have burned you at the stake.’

  Forty-two

  Branna pressed the doorbell outside Michael Gerrety’s apartment and it played ‘If I Were a Rich Man’. She stood there, wondering if she was making a terrible mistake, and if she ought to run back to the lifts and escape from The Elysian Tower as quickly as she could. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea when she had first thought of it, getting the inside story on Michael Gerrety’s vice empire by pretending that she wanted to be a sex worker, but she was beginning to lose her nerve.

  She was wearing a pink mini-dress that she had taken up two inches to make it even shorter, and the same wedge sandals as when she had first approached Michael Gerrety at Amber’s. She had back-combed her hair in a Miley Cyrus style and stuck on false eyelashes, although they made her blink as if she were facing a barrage of flash photographers.

  Michael Gerrety opened the door himself. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come along in? Brenda, isn’t it?’

  ‘Branna,’ she said, stepping inside. The sun was going down and the apartment was filled with orange light.

  ‘Branna, my mistake,’ said Michael Gerrety. ‘Would you care for a drink, Branna?’

  ‘Just a lemonade, if you have some.’

  ‘Oh come on, how about a splash of vodka in it? It’ll relax you.’

  ‘What? All right then, but only a splash.’

  Branna looked around. She could see Carole Gerrety sitting outside on the balcony with a tall glass of Pimm’s, talking on her iPhone.

  ‘This is pure amazing, this flat,’ she commented. ‘And the view you have!’

  Michael Gerrety came out of the kitchen with her drink. It was in a frosted glass, with lots of ice and a slice of lemon. ‘I have to pay for it, though, the view,’ he told her. ‘Nothing comes for nothing in this world. I’d say without a doubt that I’m probably the hardest-working man in Cork. If not the country.’

  He sat down on one of the tan leather couches and beckoned for her to sit down next to him. ‘Now I’ve got the chance to see you close up, you’re a very pretty young lady,’ he told her. ‘You should do very well for yourself, depending on what you’re prepared to offer.’

  ‘Like I told you, Mr Gerrety, I’m not an innocent. I’ve had three boyfriends and I’ve done it with all of them.’

  ‘All right,’ said Michael Gerrety. ‘Supposing I said, I’ll give you a hundred euros if you give me oral sex, right now. I’ll take it out and you get down on your hands and knees and gobble it for me, and then I’ll spray it all over your face.’

  Branna felt as if her stomach were going down in the lift and leaving her behind. There was Michael Gerrety, lolling back on the couch in his green and white striped silk shirt and his chinos, smiling at her. Supposing he actually took out his penis and expected her to suck it? But then she thought, his wife’s out there, sitting on the balcony. He can’t expect me to do it if there’s a chance that she’s going to turn around and see us.

  ‘Without a condom, a hundred and twenty,’ she said, although her throat was so tight that she could hardly speak.

  Michael Gerrety laughed and slapped his thigh. ‘I like your style, Branna! That’s a bit above the going rate, but like I say, you’re a pretty girl and you’ll probably get it. Is there anything you won’t do? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? If a client wants to piss on you, or vice versa, or if he wants to bring a friend along for a threesome, or even a foursome?’

  ‘I don’t care what I do, Mr Gerrety, so long as they treat me with respect, and so long as they pay me.’

  ‘That’s perfect, Branna. That’s exactly the right attitude. And that’s why you’ve made the right decision, coming to me. If you’d tried to set up on your own, you wouldn’t have the website advertising that I can offer you, so you wouldn’t get nearly so much work. Apart from that, and more important, you wouldn’t get the protection that goes with it. All of the girls who work through Cork Fantasy Girls are very well looked after.’

  He finished his drink, and then he said, ‘I’ve had a little trouble with staff lately. I’ve lost one or two of them. But I’m hiring some new fellers and they’ll take good care of you, I promise.’

  Branna tried to smile. ‘That’s grand, Mr Gerrety. When do you think I’ll be starting?’

  ‘Give it a couple of days. We have to set up your web page and get you online. There’s a room free on Carroll’s Quay and you can move into that as soon as you like. We should think of a working name for you, too, shouldn’t we? How about Roxanne? Or Godiva? I like that – Godiva! That’s what we’ll call you.’

  Branna nodded, dumbly. She was close to panicking. She had all the evidence she needed on the voice recorder in her bag and all she wanted to do now was get out of here. Although Michael Gerrety appeared to be so relaxed and so matter-of-fact about her working as a prostitute, it was his very nonchalance that frightened her most of all. Here he was, sitting in this luxury apartment as the burning orange sun sank over the city, asking a seventeen-year-old girl if she would allow men to sodomize her and urinate all over her, or even worse, and yet he was treating their conversation as completely normal.

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ he said. ‘We’ll give you a medical examination before you start. Cork Fantasy Girls is always very responsi
ble when it comes to sexual health. You’ll be given examinations regularly after that, usually about once a month, or at any time you feel that a client might have passed something on to you.’

  ‘When you say “given” …?’ asked Branna.

  ‘Oh – I don’t mean given for free. You have to pay for each examination, of course. But you won’t notice because they’re automatically deducted out of your earnings, like everything else. Your website, your rent for your room, the gas you use, the electric, your food, your condoms, your wipes. But you’ll still be making more money in a day than you would have made at Dunne’s in a month, and you won’t be paying any tax or social insurance, so you won’t have anything to complain about.’

  ‘All right,’ said Branna. She stood up and said, ‘I’ll wait to hear from you, then.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Michael Gerrety.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won’t hear from me unless you give me your mobile number.’

  ‘Oh, no, of course not. If you have a pen I’ll write it down for you.’

  Michael Gerrety reached across the coffee table and handed her a silver ballpen. ‘Here, write it on this magazine.’

  He watched her while she was leaning over the table, writing. When she handed him back the pen and the magazine, he said, ‘What are you wearing, underneath that dress?’

  Branna said, ‘A bra. I always have to wear a bra.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lift it up, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lift up your dress and let’s take a look.’

  Branna turned around. Carole Gerrety was still on the phone.

  ‘Go on,’ said Michael Gerrety. ‘You’ll be doing it professionally from next week.’

  There was something hard in Michael Gerrety’s expression that made Branna think that this was a test. She didn’t think that he suspected her of not being genuinely interested in becoming a sex worker, but this was a way of making sure that she had no inhibitions about showing herself off to strange men.