Grumpy pushed his chair back and stood up.
Marie could see that he was angry, but she gave him credit for trying to contain it: maybe he wasn’t such an asshole after all.
‘There are a lot of other places we’d rather be right now too – Miss Bain – than in here investigating who killed Culo Conrado and the subsequent death of two of our colleagues, but you know what they say: “When there’s shit flying around watch out for the asshole.” Unfortunately for me, today I have to be the asshole.’
Marie smiled faintly at the image, but Kneller’s face didn’t crack.
‘I’m not making jokes here, Miss Bain,’ he continued. ‘The quicker we can get Vincent Lee Croll off the street the quicker we’ll know why he was trying to hit the Polish guy and hopefully find out who the hell the Polish guy is. But until then, there is a very real risk that the Polish guy is gonna want you dead too. You witnessed him commit a murder. Mr Lee Croll would probably like a word with you as well. And if all that isn’t bad enough there’s a Mr Hernando De Garza skulking around in the background. You ever heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘Well let’s hope things stay that way, cause he is the nastiest little piece of shit that ain’t already in hell . . . and that’s because hell refused him entry. He deals drugs, he deals arms, he deals hookers and he has people murdered for looking at him the wrong way. Unfortunately he also pays his taxes so a lot of powerful people have him over to their house for dinner.’
‘Why you telling me all this: he invited us round for drinks?’
‘No. He employs lowlifes like Croll and Conrado to do his dirty work. And if De Garza is behind all of this then God help you. There you have it. Anything smartass you’d like to add?’
Marie said nothing. She wanted to get up and walk out, but she knew the guy was right. She was in a situation that was completely beyond her realm of experience and if she was being honest she was scared as hell. Marie’s first line of defence was a sarcastic comment, or a cutting remark, but these guys weren’t going to take any shit from her. For once she didn’t have a comeback.
‘If you’re trying to frighten me, Agent Kneller: congratulations.’ Marie felt her cheeks burn crimson and her stomach cramp again. There was a squealing noise as the legs of the chair scraped along the polished stone floor. Marie stood abruptly and bent over to pick up her bag.
‘I have to go.’
The other agent who had barely said a word suddenly jumped in.
‘Wait, please. Let’s just rewind for a second . . .’
But Marie didn’t let him finish. ‘I’m sorry, I really need to go. I’m trying to help you, I really am, but this whole situation is just too goddamn surreal. You’re talking to me like I was the one who pulled the trigger. You guys might have seen lots of people killed right in front of you, but it’s never happened to me. If you need me for anything else you can contact me through my lawyer or get your goddamn fucking subpoena.’ She started to falter. ‘And I’m . . . you know . . . I just want to get the hell out of here.’
Kneller was backtracking now, aware that he’d come on too strong. ‘If you want to wait for five minutes we’ll arrange for someone to take you home.’
‘I can make my own way,’ said Marie as she headed for the exit.
Kneller was on his feet now, holding his hand up to stop her.
‘Miss Bain, I’d like to apologise. We are all feeling the pressure at the moment. I didn’t mean to get so het up. Obviously you’re free to do what you like, but I’d warn you that all my instincts are telling me this is a nasty situation we got on our hands here. Why don’t you let one of our guys give you a lift and we’ll arrange to talk to you later. Take the rest of the weekend, but we will need you here first thing on Monday morning. Sure, we can do that through a lawyer, but I’d rather we kept it informal and stayed friends. Now, the front of the building is swarming with press and it really wouldn’t be a good idea to get your photograph in the papers or on television right now in case Lee Croll or the Polish guy or De Garza see it. Then, who knows what sort of trouble you could find yourself in.’
He was standing right in front of her, blocking her way.
Marie stared at the floor. ‘I just want to go home,’ she said in a quiet voice.
Agent Kneller took a step to the side and held open the door for her.
As she walked out into the corridor Marie heard him call after her, but she’d stopped listening, something about leaving by the back entrance.
The door slammed shut before he’d finished.
*
‘Did you hear that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She didn’t realise what she said‚ but she will. Probably hit her first thing in the morning. That’s when all my revelations come to me: soon as I wake up.’
‘You see her eyes switch direction when she mentioned the guy was Polish?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking there’s no way in the world the guy is Polish . . . I mean, she blushed too. But why would she lie? I’m also thinking I hope some dickhead doesn’t “accidentally” reveal Miss Bain’s identity to the press. Lee Croll and the Polish guy who isn’t Polish would have no option but to look her up.’
‘D’you think De Garza’s involved?’
‘Conrado and Croll don’t work for anyone else.’
‘Feeding her to the press is too risky. She’s the only real witness we’ve got.’
‘It won’t take them long to figure out who she is anyway. All they got to do is ask a few of the regular drinkers who the hot barmaid is. Might as well earn fifty bucks for passing on the information. She’s smartass enough to look after herself, don’t you think?’
‘I could be that dickhead for fifty bucks.’
‘You don’t need the fifty bucks.’
‘Cheap.’
Agent Kneller’s face almost cracked a smile. ‘Need to keep an extra-close eye on her then; make damn sure we’re there if Lee Croll or anyone else does show. It’s a gamble, but how else are we going to flush them out? You cold?’
‘Not as cold as she was,’ replied Evelyn. ‘You see her nipples sticking out her blouse?’
‘I was watching her eyes the whole time.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Turn the thermostat back up . . . dickhead.’
Chapter 14
South Armagh, Maundy Thursday‚ evening
‘Well bless my hole. If it isn’t the man himself! What happened to you? You look like I feel . . . and I feel like shite.’
Danny’s thin-lipped smile made his face hurt.
E.I. held a finger to his lips – ‘Shh’ – then gestured Danny to take a seat opposite him at his large oak desk.
O’Leary’s study had an elevated view out over the fields of his extensive farm. On the horizon a large, green Massey Ferguson tractor was pulling a tanker behind it, spreading slurry.
Danny moved awkwardly to the edge of the desk, but stayed standing. He was still in a lot of pain.
E.I. scribbled a note on a piece of scrap paper and pushed it across the worn leather surface of the desk. Danny adjusted his glasses and picked up the note. ‘Were you followed?’
He shrugged and raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘Who knows?’
E.I. pulled the scrap of paper back with his big farmer hands and scribbled again.
‘Tape on, then follow me.’
Danny nodded: it had been a long time since he’d visited the old farmhouse, but he still remembered the routine.
E.I. raised his large bulk from the fragile, oak-framed chair and turned to a tape machine sitting on the bookshelves behind. He flicked the ‘on’ button and listened for a moment as the opening strains of Wagner’s Lohengrin eased through the speakers. The tape had been mixed amateurishly with E.I.’s gruff, Capstan-Full-Strength voice, reading aloud a randomly chosen passage about striking dustbin men from the previous day’s Irish Times. The overall effect was
a strange, uneasy marriage of sounds.
With a nod of the head E.I. gestured to Danny to help him lift the rug Danny was standing on. Danny slid the rug to one side with his foot then E.I. pulled open a trapdoor in the floor. They both made their way down a set of rough wooden steps to a narrow tunnel just wide enough for E.I.’s large frame, but not quite tall enough for either of them to stand upright. The tunnel was lit by a string of worker lamps threaded along one side of the timber-framed structure that lined the walls and ceiling, and stretched for some fifty feet along its entire length.
E.I. closed the trapdoor behind him and dropped down the last few steps until he was standing behind Danny.
‘That’ll keep the bastards guessing, eh? C’mon, let’s get a beer.’
As the men made their way along the tunnel E.I. continued, ‘Sometimes I read the Beano or the Dandy instead of the Times, depends on my mood. There’s a van full of microphones pointing at the house parked in the field across the back there. I’m sure they know it’s a tape, but who gives a fuck eh? I can’t have a shit without some bugger recording the event. But I’m getting fed up with it, I tell ye. I’m negotiating to buy the land they’re parked on from the old bastard that owns it; then I’m going to sue the Brits for trespass. Made him a fair offer for it, that he turned down, so I told him he has to give it to me for nothing now, or I’ll kill his family.’ E.I. let loose a thick, coarse laugh. ‘Sent a couple of the lads over to the old bugger’s house to tell him to his face. You would have thought someone was standing behind him giving him a round of applause, the noise the bastard’s sphincter was making.’
At the end of the underground passage, another set of steps led up to a trapdoor that opened out into a large barn. The barn was lined with rectangular bales of hay three deep and stacked from the floor all the way up to its corrugated roof, some thirty feet above. In one corner sat a full-size snooker table with a game in progress. Six onlookers sat on benches, drinking and waiting their turn to play. One of the men looked familiar to Danny, but he couldn’t remember his name. Danny nodded over, but for some reason the guy didn’t look too happy to see him and turned away.
A couple of E.I.’s armed bodyguards were seated at a large rectangular drawing table drinking beer and reading the sports section of the newspaper. The drawing table was set in the middle of the cavernous hall of hay next to a fridge full of alcohol, and was surrounded by a few old sofas and armchairs. The low-level lighting and the sound of Diamond Dogs blasting from the large speakers hanging precariously from the metal rafters above gave the place the feeling of a seedy nightclub on the brink of financial ruin. At the far end there was a mountain of stolen goods, everything from televisions and computers to bicycles and curling tongs, all stacked in neat rows.
E.I. caught Danny’s gaze. ‘Need a new telly?’ he asked. ‘After we’ve had our wee chat you can do a bit of shopping.’ His bloated, pugnacious face tried to smile, but it looked more like a scowl. ‘Don’t look so worried, Danny, we’ll do you a discount.’
He grabbed a beer from the fridge.
‘Welcome to the republican remedial club, shelter to the needy, the greedy and the criminally insane,’ he continued. ‘This is what you’re missing out on when you’re sitting there in your ivory tower pretending you work alone. These are your comrades-in-arms.’
Danny thought he detected a little warning note in E.I.’s voice, but he didn’t care: he knew he was regarded as an outsider and he was happy to keep it that way.
Despite its size, the lack of doors and windows made the barn feel claustrophobic. Danny looked for an exit but it seemed the only way in and out was back through the tunnel.
‘Is there somewhere more private we can go?’ he asked.
‘Relax, our lad,’ said E.I., putting his arm round Danny’s shoulder and causing him to wince. ‘We’re all on the same side. These people are your friends. Grab yourself a beer an let’s have a wee chat.’
Danny helped himself to a can of Coke from the fridge, then lowered himself slowly onto the sofa next to E.I. ‘Has Órlaith been in touch?’
‘Sure, she called here first thing this morning asking if we knew what the hell was going on. I told her we didn’t know a bloody thing.’
‘Did she say where she was?’
‘She’s at yer ma’s. Says she’s not going back to her house, “till you stop doin whatever it is you’re doin”,’ answered E.I. ‘She sounded in a bad way, Danny. Told us what had happened last night. Bastards, eh? D’you know who they were?’
‘SAS without a doubt,’ answered Danny.
‘D’you think they’re on to you?’
‘No. I’ve got a close-surveillance team on my hole. Caught one of them in church the other day with a microphone up his sleeve on a fishing trip: putting pressure on me, hoping I’ll do something stupid – which I duly did, of course. I pulled a gun on him. I think they were letting me know it wasn’t a smart thing to do. I need to lay low for a bit.’
‘E4A?’ asked E.I.
‘I think so,’ replied Danny.
‘What are they up to?’ asked E.I. ‘E4A are police, not army. D’you think they’re getting the SAS to do their dirty work for them these days?’
‘Possibly,’ replied Danny. ‘Since that list went missing they’re expecting me to get busy . . . could be that as well.’
‘How did you suss him out?’
‘He forgot to cross himself.’
‘Aye, it’s always the silly things that fuck you up, am I right‚ Danny?’
E.I. was sly: he liked to unsettle people by making them think he knew more than he was letting on. His small, dark eyes were difficult to read and reminded Danny of a shark. Let your guard down for a second and he’d bite. But Danny was ready for him.
‘I don’t do silly things,’ he said‚ adding ‘generally.’
‘What were you doing in church?’ asked E.I.
It crossed his mind that Órlaith might have mentioned to E.I. about the meeting with Lep McFarlane, but Danny was fairly sure she hadn’t. Either way he wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. ‘Confessing my sins,’ was all that he said. ‘Priest said if you ever fancy going, he’d get the Guinness Book of Records there to time it.’
E.I. only ever laughed at his own jokes, but he did give Danny a smile. ‘“Pure as the driven snow”, our lad. “Pure as the driven snow”.’
He banged his hand on the arm of the sofa, signalling the end of the small talk.
‘I have a wee proposition for you, Danny, that could suit all parties involved: get you out of Northern Ireland for a while, away from the Snoops, the SAS, and give me an enormous amount of satisfaction.’ E.I. was staring at him now. ‘Before I start: did you happen to get a look at the list?’
Danny shook his head.
‘You sure?’ pressed E.I.
‘I never even touched it. Eamon dropped round to my place for a beer after the operation, but as far as I’m aware he’d already passed it on to Quig. Why?’
‘Are you sure?’
Danny wondered why E.I. was asking. ‘Positive,’ he replied.
‘Did Eamon look at it, or Quig, d’you think?’
‘Possibly, I’ve no idea,’ said Danny, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. ‘I never spoke to Quig. They might have had a look to check it was the right thing, but that’s about it, I really don’t know. Is there a problem?’
E.I. deflected him with another question.
‘How’s yer ma, Danny? You looking after her all right?’
Danny wasn’t interested in talking about his mother: he wanted to find out why E.I. had asked to see him, then get the hell out of there.
‘She’s fine.’
‘I know how she feels about us, Danny, but you tell her the door here is always open if she needs anything.’
‘I will.’
E.I. lowered his voice. ‘I tell you, and I’ve never said this to anyone, but I have nightmares about what happened to your Sean. The explosion was t
he size of a fuckin mountain in my rear-view mirror; I can still feel the heat on the back of my neck. I’ve had people swear they saw it light up the sky as far away as Dublin. There’s no consolation in it, but your Sean wouldn’t have felt a thing.’ E.I.’s monotone voice betrayed no emotion as he spoke. ‘If we’d detonated that bomb where we’d intended: not only would it have taken out the Prime Minister, but half of Belfast as well . . . Aye, your Sean wasn’t a soldier, he was an army, our lad. A terrible loss.’
E.I. paused and took a drink of beer before continuing. ‘Anyway, the reason I bring it up is, we’ve had a few sightings of Lep McFarlane cutting around his old haunts. Would you believe the fuckin cheek of the dirty little tout: daring to show his face in Newry again?’
Danny wasn’t sure if he was being paranoid or just over-sensitive, but once again it looked like E.I. was watching him for a reaction.
‘Anyway I thought you’d want to know Danny . . . He’s a kill-on-sight job.’
‘Is that what you wanted to see me about?’ asked Danny.
E.I. looked like he was expecting more of a reaction from Danny: his eyes narrowed, but Danny was giving nothing away. ‘It was one of the things, the support act if you like, but here’s the main event,’ said E.I. ‘While we’re on the subject of treacherous little bastards who deserve to die, there’s something I want to ask you. I know you like to set your own agenda‚ Danny, but how d’you fancy a wee trip to the States courtesy of the Irish Republican Army?’
Seventy Times Seven Page 10