The Murk Beneath_A Cork Crime Novel

by L. Danvers

  The wind was northeasterly, probably Siberian, and took little nips at exposed areas of my skin. I pulled the scarf up around my cheeks.

  The work suited me. I was on my own, the boss of myself, in effect. But there was a lot of time for thinking too. I'd see things out in the dark. Flashes. Something in the corner of the lot. A little boy's grey corpse. I couldn't shake those images.

  A couple of hours passed. I took a piss in the southernmost corner, watering dog leaves that had found a home in some cracks in the concrete. I looked out over the city through the chain-link fencing. The lights winked in a light mist that was rolling over the city from the direction of the harbour. A bat flew by near enough for me to hear the swoosh of its wings.

  There came another noise somewhere out in the dark. I quickly zipped up my pants as if the lack of decorum might offend whatever cretin might be out there. The sound came from my side of the fence. I'd seen things, yes, but never heard anything that wasn't there. I arced the pale yellow glow of my torch, but couldn't make anything out. Another noise, this time from another direction – a shoe sole rolling on gravel, I was quite certain. I turned the beam of light to see what it was.

  My heart bottomed out when I saw the man in the balaclava with the machete in his hand. The machete caught the light of my torch and reflected in my eyes, ruining my night vision. My feet seemed to grow roots and I felt a tingling sensation in my groin. Some drug addict with a two-by-four I could handle, but this guy had come prepared and it was clear he meant business.

  Balaclava man just stood there as if waiting for me to advance, the machete held at an angle across his chest. When I felt like I could move my legs again, I began to retreat slowly as if he was somehow an animal that would startle easily. I backed into something … someone. Less than a second later I was lying crumpled in a heap after something had been rapped against the back of my head. The pain was like a spike had been pushed down through my skull.

  Things became disjointed then, all at once happening at speed and in slow-motion. My ankles and wrists were bound with plastic ties. Three men, maybe, all in balaclavas, were busily moving in and out of the warehouse taking boxes to a van that had been driven into the compound. Another stood by me, initially emptying my pockets – car keys, mobile phone, walkie-talkie – then just standing over me as if I were carrion and the masked man with the Doc Martens was a bird of prey. Those boots would prod me occasionally with steel toe-caps, just to see if I was still conscious. I was, barely. That I could see the comings and goings appeared to be of no concern.

  Not a word was spoken. There was no doubt among the raiders about the location of their loot. The operation was precise – there would be no messing around to see what else caught their fancy.

  They made five trips in all, making off with fifteen boxes. Then two of them got in the back of the van and the other into the driver seat. The man with the Doc Martens gave me one last prod, more forcefully this time. I looked up at him, dazed, but somehow with enough of my wits intact to look at the man’s eyes. I couldn’t make out the colour, but I could see their shape. I'm good with eyes, me. I hoped they would register in my mind despite the bang to my head.

  “That’s quite a fetching outfit,” I said, for some reason noting how sleek he looked. “Black is slimming on you.” I got a kick in the ribs for being a smart aleck.

  The van driver gesticulated for the guy to get out quickly. Doc Martens looked at the driver, then down at me again before moving away, finally, mercifully, to take his place in the passenger seat of the van.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought!” I screamed after them. “Fucking … black ops wannabes.”

  And then, at last, they went. I could feel the warm trickle of blood tickling its way down the back of my head and inside my collar. What in the name of Christ could I do then? I struggled to free my hands, working the wrists, tightening my thumbs inward to make my hands as narrow as possible. This only succeeded in drawing more blood. I wormed my body along the gravel until I reached a forklift and used the fork to rub the hand tie against. I eventually got free when the tie gave. With my hands free, wearing down the tie around my ankles was quicker.

  What then? Run? Hide? A phone. The office. I ran to the site manager’s office, forced the door open and raised the alarm with HQ and they called the Guards. I sat in an office chair and waited. Then came the unmerciful pain in my skull. I put my arms across the desk and slumped my head into them.

  It took less than five minutes for the Guards to arrive. A patrol car at first with a couple of low-ranked uniforms, both young women, then a couple of minutes later an unmarked Mondeo from which stepped a uniformed sergeant that I recognized. I'd never liked the guy. He never seemed to have his shirt buttoned up properly. For me, sloppiness is the first rung on the ladder to corruption.

  “As I live and breathe. If it isn't my old pal Mickey Bosco,” Sergeant Dave Savage said.

  The way he said breathe was elongated, slithery.

  “Give us a look,” he continued.

  He twisted my head around like he was handling a coffee mug so he could see the wound. It hurt like a motherfucker. He sucked air in between his pursed lips.

  “Oh that's nasty. I think we should call an ambulance.”

  I could smell mouthwash on his breath.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I'm fine.”

  If there was one pig I wouldn't be showing weakness to, it was Savage.

  “Standard procedure, I'm afraid. Sorry to make a fuss, you know.”

  He gestured to a junior Garda officer.

  “Call an ambulance for my old pal here, will you, Dom?”

  Dom looked like he wasn't long out of Pampers. His uniform was pristine, his gait erect and stiff. He had a high forehead and very little hair for a man of his age. He looked like a Guard should, but I could imagine him naively hoovering up Savage's nastiness as if it were somehow part of an unwritten Garda code. It was Savage's ilk that gave the Gardaí a mixed reputation. I could only hope that maturity and a sense of inner decency would prevent Dom ending up like him.

  Savage asked me for an account of the robbery while we waited. I gave as much as I could remember: black balaclavas, black jackets, dark camouflage cargo pants, black boots – like uniforms. Dressed more neatly than you, you sad excuse for a Guard.

  Savage asked me for any more specific details. I gave him the number plate of the van – which would no doubt turn up a couple of miles away burnt out. There was the blow to my crown and the prodding Doc Martens. The robbers never spoke, knew exactly what they were coming for, and where the boxes were stacked. Very professional. Inside knowledge for definite. But that wasn’t for me, the ex-Guard, to theorize about.

  The first two Guards that arrived returned to tell Savage that they had checked the centre and the scene was secure. They had a country look about them. They looked at me like I had just fallen off the end of their shoes, one of them smirking with an uneven grin. Savage said something to them out of earshot and I could see the four of them sniggering while glancing in my direction.

  Savage walked back to me and thanked me for the information just as the ambulance arrived. His words rang hollow. He looked at me, up close to my face and said, “The old Bosco I knew would never have been taken from behind like that.” That was rich coming from a back-stabber like Savage. “What happened to that guy, eh? Have you gotten soft in your old age?”

  An EMT interrupted Savage’s rambling when she came over to me with some kind of toolbox. Like I was an old motorbike. She opened the box and put something white and spongy on my head, then asked me to apply pressure, which I barely had the strength to do. As the EMT led me to the ambulance, Savage called out, “I'll be in touch, Bosco. You can count on it.”

  They took me to A&E where I was stitched up, observed until the morning, and sent home.

  Later that day as I fiddled with the dressing on my head wound, I decided I'd put myself in harm's way one time too often. I called HQ, asked for
the boss, and quit on the spot. The guy said something about a notice period, but when I pointed out, in a slurred voice that was not entirely put on, that brain damage was grounds for a law suit, he promptly granted my wish.

  Just before 1 p.m. a couple of sharp raps on the front door ricocheted inside my aching skull like bullets in a bank vault. Bleary eyed, I made my way to the door and could see from the side window that Sergeant Dave Savage and a plain clothes detective – I can tell them a mile off – were waiting impatiently for me. Another knock on the door just as I reached for the latch made me pause. I shook my head to clear the resultant ringing in my ears and finally opened the door.

  “Have you no pity for the walking dead?” I said.

  Savage, looking as dishevelled as ever, just chuckled. The other guy, a grim-looking man in a grizzled suit, wore rectangular glasses that seemed to offset his eyes too much. He was all arms and legs and I imagined his suits had to be specially tailored. His sinewy face made it difficult to put an age on him, but his demeanour suggested at least early fifties.

  “I’m DI Halloran,” he said, not so much as offering a hand to me. “I’d like to ask you some questions concerning the robbery last night. Do you mind if we come in?”

  I stood aside to let them pass. Neither man moved.

  “After you, Mr Bosco,” Halloran said, beckoning me towards the kitchen. A brief smile creased Savage’s mouth.

  In the kitchen, I offered both a glass of water. Both refused. A decade earlier I would have been in a position to offer something stiffer, though the newer breed of Garda were apt to refuse such an offer.

  “Please sit, Mr Bosco,” Halloran said as he took a notebook from the inside pocket of his furry suit jacket. “This won’t take long. Sergeant Savage has filled me in on the details of the case, but I just have a few follow-up questions. I’m sure you understand, what with you …”

  The pause was an embarrassing reminder of my past indiscretion. “Yes. I’m pretty familiar with the procedures. Go ahead.”

  Halloran began by asking about the events of the previous night and I gave as good as verbatim to him what I had said to Savage. While Halloran wrote something into his notebook, I decided to fish for something on his background.

  “I don’t think we’ve met, Detective Halloran,” I said. “What division are you assigned to?”

  “NBCI,” he replied with some authority, and without looking up from his notebook, as if to suggest he was above assignment to one of the districts.

  “A bureau man, then. What interests the bigwigs in Dublin about this particular case?”

  Halloran looked up from his notebook. “You’re out of the loop, Bosco. It’s no concern of yours. Just answer my questions.”

  I’d be lying if I said his reply didn’t hurt. Out of the loop. An other.

  “Did anything suspicious happen in the days leading up to last night? Someone out of place, maybe taking a bit of interest in the facility?”

  I shook my head. But I had to question my attitude as a security guard. As a Garda officer, I could be sure I’d notice if some goon was casing the place. I was in service to the state, responsible to the citizens that walked the length and breadth of Cork. It was my duty to notice such things. Solid Security, on the other hand, was a job, a cheque at the end of the week. I did the minimum, could barely see past the end of my nose, to be plain about it.

  “It must have been tough, Bosco,” Halloran said. “You put your life on the line and there’s no second chances. You do the country a favour -”

  Savage, unusually silent all this time, finally piped up, interrupting Halloran. “I always knew you were a ticking time bomb, Bosco. If it wasn’t Chambers, it was going to be someone else. I’ll bet you loved it, years of frustration coiled around his neck, squeezing the -”

  Halloran put up his hand suddenly to hobble Savage in full gallop. I noticed my right fist was clenched so hard that the nails were embedded in my palm.

  “That’s quite enough for now,” Halloran said. “If there are any follow up questions, I’ll be in touch.”

  I saw them to the door and watched as they got into a marked patrol car. Savage drove them away.

  Something struck me as a little odd about the house call, though. Halloran was a long way from Dublin's Harcourt Street HQ. The way I saw it, relatively minor robberies like Churchfield were handled by the local plods. There had to be more to it than the apparent routineness that Halloran conveyed.

  My phone rang a day later while I stood weighing up whether to go for a cereal or a fry up. The caller identified himself as a representative of Jim Jordan, chairman of the holding company that owned the distribution centre in Churchfield. It didn't twig with me at first exactly who this Jim Jordan was. It should have.

  “The boss wants to know why the sudden walk out, Mickey. He doesn't like how it looks.”

  “Were you expecting a protracted walk out?”

  “Enough with the quips, Mickey. Why’d you quit?”

  “I got beat over the head. Why do you think I quit? Anyway, I don’t work for you. I worked for Solid Security. How’d you even get my number?”

  I leaned back against the fridge. The fridge groaned. My head still hurt and it seemed the radiation from the phone made it worse.

  “That’s a dumb fucking question, Mickey.”

  His voice had a thick Cork accent. From somewhere in the city, maybe south of the River Lee. Somewhere on the Southside that belonged on the Northside. Togher?

  The guy was going all lackey on me. And that's when it did finally twig with me. The Gentleman. Of all the places to end up minding, it had to belong to Jim The Gentleman Jordan, a supposedly gone-legit former crime lord, someone who'd slipped from the public consciousness. I took a second to compose myself.

  “All the same,” I said, “what business is it of yours or anyone else’s?”

  “The shades have come up with fuck all. The boss was wondering if you were feeding a load of shite to them. He's beginning to worry about you. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, a secure facility and a gang of crooks just drive in the front gate?”

  “That's a pile of horse manure. You should see the gash on my head. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

  I instinctively ran my hand over my head and felt the bump that no amount of ice, it seemed, could reduce in size.

  “Fifteen grand’s worth of TVs, though? I'd consider taking a slap on the noggin for a piece of that,” the representative said.

  “The cunts could have left me brain damaged. Or worse. Even fifteen K wouldn't cut it for that kind of risk. Now, fifty K, maybe.”

  Truth was, I had been in kind of a desperate situation, so who knows what I might have done.

  “Look, you gotta work with me here. The boss just wants to make sure. You gotta see how it looks from the outside, right?”

  “Yeah, right. What did you say your name was?”

  I knew he hadn't, but I had to try something to shift the focus of the conversation.

  “Never you fucking mind. All you need to know is who I'm speaking for. Capische?”

  Jesus Christ, who did the guy think he was – Don Corleone? The guy was acting tough, with an emphasis on the word acting.

  “I got that part loud and clear, Marlon,” I said. “Now I hope I've made myself clear. I didn't do nothing your boss need worry about. I'm clean. OK?”

  “If you say so, homes. Look, you take care of yourself, OK?”

  I cringed when he said homes. He'd gone from Italian mob to Latino street gang in two sentences flat.

  “Yeah. No one else will.”

  I gently placed the receiver onto its cradle to end the call. Then I picked it up again and banged the table hard three times with it before replacing it. A tightening of my chest muscles and a labouring of my breath reminded me that there were only so many of these hard miles I could travel.

  Churchfield had just been an assignment from the security company. Why was a lackey of The Gentleman calling me? Bes
ides, I knew shag all about the robbery. But guys like The Gentleman went with their gut and if they smelled something they wouldn't hesitate to act. He only had to be paranoid all the time for him to be right some of the time.

  I sat back at the kitchen table again. I thought about buying another bottle of Jameson. Instead, I stuck a Benson in my mouth and fired it up. It was one or the other, I decided; no way was I going cold turkey.

  I listened to the radio for a while in the hope that my wheeziness would subside as I relaxed. Daniel O’Donnell – Ireland’s favourite mammy-loving crooner – was interviewed at one point and I felt like taking a hammer to it. I just didn't know what to do with myself. Pull yourself together. My arse was killing me from sitting on the knotted wooden chair. I didn’t understand why anyone would make a chair without a cushion.

  First Savage and Halloran, and now this heavy of Jordan’s. It was enough to make me feel sorry for myself. Rather than wallow in self pity, I decided that I had to do something that would move my life forward. And where better for a fresh start than the pub.

  2

  A Crucifix of Suffering

  An Capall Bán – The White Horse. A bar with more characters than a typewriter. My local haunt is frequented by the dregs of Blarney Street and Gurranabraher and has all the charm and comfort of a tinker's caravan. It lives up to the tradition of Cork as the rebel county by defying the smoking ban – the health inspectors dare not visit unannounced.

  Behind the bar, a single barman washing glasses. At the bar, a row of half-passed-out men, some with pints, most with harder stuff, some with newspapers open on the horse racing pages, hands black with ink, others absently watching a replay of a soccer match between nobodies on the TV. An assortment of collectors’ items on shelves around the bar – old lanterns, old road signs, old bottles, old pictures of old sports teams. The floor sticky, the air stale with spilt drink, wafting cigarette smoke and the body odour of men who seemed to live there but never shower.