Ten feet ahead of the Fiat, a parked car suddenly lurched out from the left, into their path. At first Dolly thought it was some asshole bad driver, then he saw a couple of men with guns coming out of a garden on the right. The woman braked, the Fiat stopped inches from the unmarked police car and Dolly was thrown forward, his head smacking into the Fiat’s windscreen.
The woman screamed.
Dolly’s gun was on the floor, where he’d dropped it. He reached down with one hand, the other wiping blood away from his forehead.
The window beside him smashed inwards and by the time the door was pulled open he was sticking his gun into the young woman’s belly.
‘Stay calm, do nothing stupid.’ The garda’s voice was soft, unexcited. He was wearing scruffy overalls and his hair was long and unwashed. There were two others, one in front of the car, one on the far side, both pointing pistols at Dolly.
The woman was making nervous noises. She was staring down at the gun pushed into the folds of her pale blue blouse.
‘Please,’ she said, high-pitched, teary.
Dolly said, ‘Back off, I’m telling you. I’ll kill her. I’m not kidding.’
The long-haired cop said, ‘End of the road, one way or the other. You choose.’ The muzzle of his gun was a foot away from Dolly’s temple and rock steady.
‘Get back! Move away from the car!’
‘Come on, what’s the point? Stay calm.’
‘You’ll be responsible.’ Dolly looked the long-haired cop in the eye. Both of them were breathing heavily.
The cop said, ‘No one has to die here.’
Dolly just sat there, thinking. He blocked out the woman’s mewling.
Choose.
They’d hardly shoot him. Too big a chance he’d jerk the trigger, kill the girl.
Choose.
If he waited too long the cops might decide he was building up to something and end it all by shooting him and taking a chance that the woman would be all right.
Choose.
He nodded to the long-haired cop, then he slowly sat back and let the cop see that he was taking his finger off the trigger. He held the pistol loosely, making sure it wasn’t pointing at anyone. On his right, the driver’s door opened and the woman was pulled clear. Dolly could hear her crying as one of the cops hustled her away.
The long-haired garda had Dolly’s gun now, stuffing it into a pocket of his overalls.
‘Out. And put your hands on your head.’
Dolly got out of the car slowly, and no one saw the knife until after it came up swinging and slashed the long-haired garda across the cheek. The cop screamed and dropped his gun and before it hit the ground Dolly was behind him, holding the knife to his throat.
Dolly was screaming now at the other two. ‘Guns down! Both of you! Now! Right now or I open him up!’
Nothing happened for a very long time, maybe ten seconds.
Dolly could feel the cop’s blood wet and warm on his knife hand. He could see the other two figuring the angles. Was there enough of Dolly showing from behind their mate, would one shot disable him or would he be fast and strong enough with the knife?
‘It goes one way, I walk away. For now,’ Dolly said. ‘It goes the other way, he dies forever.’
His face was placid, as if the outcome was of little concern.
‘Decide.’
One garda, then the other, pointed his gun away from Dolly, and put it on the roof of the woman’s car. The woman was standing thirty feet away, one hand to her mouth, her legs visibly shaking.
Dolly kept the knife to the cop’s throat until he reached into the cop’s pocket and found his own gun. Then he said, You can move away now.’ The long-haired cop was holding his face together, blood spilling between his fingers. He moved away, keeping his eyes on Dolly.
Dolly said to one of the other gardai, ‘Go look after her.’ The man looked back towards the young woman. He said, ‘OK,’ then backed away.
‘You too,’ Dolly waved his gun at the other cop.
Dolly picked up the long-haired cop’s gun from the roadway, unloaded the shells on to the ground and threw the gun into a nearby garden. He did the same with the two guns on the roof of the Fiat. As he wiped his bloody hands on the upholstery of the driver’s seat he noticed an elderly man standing at the door of a house across the street, watching him, his mouth open.
Dolly turned to the cops and said, ‘Phones and radios.’ When he had smashed three mobiles and one handheld, he fired a shot into a front tyre of the woman’s car. She screamed. One of the gardai held her tight, muttering calming words.
The engine of the unmarked police car was still running. Dolly got behind the wheel.
The long-haired garda sat on the kerb, holding his face together, watching him drive away.
The ERU took their time preparing the entry to the suspect house. By now, there were uniforms all over the place. They evacuated neighbours from several houses at either side and from across the road and from the houses on the street directly behind. They blocked off streets and the ERU marksmen targeted doors and windows. Sergeant Dowd used a loudspeaker, demanding that anyone inside the house or gardens show themselves. The house remained silent, nothing visible at any window or in the shadowed hallway beyond the open front door.
OK, do it the hard way.
Armoured-up, helmeted, they went in through the front door, slowly, covering one another, adrenalin raging. They used small mirrors on aluminium rods to peer around corners and into rooms. They found Martin Paxton sitting in the kitchen, elbows on the table, fingers linked, his chin resting on his hands. There was a gun ten feet away, on a countertop. He looked up as the first dark, militarised policeman came in. Then he looked away.
He got down on his belly when they told him to and when they had him cuffed and asked him his name he told them. They told him he didn’t have to say anything and they asked if he wanted a solicitor. He didn’t answer. They handed him over to the uniforms, who took him to Santry garda station, where he refused to make a statement or answer any questions.
Brendan Sweetman’s solicitor, Connie Wintour, arrived at Clontarf garda station less than an hour after his client was put in a cell. Wintour, a small fussy man with blotchy skin and an air of weary superiority, talked to the arresting officer, then had a whispered conversation with his client. He then told the gardai that it might be in their interests if he was allowed a full private consultation with Mr Sweetman before the interrogators went to work.
Mr Wintour spent almost an hour with Sweetman and emerged with a handwritten statement, written by Wintour and signed by his client, to be greeted by two detectives from Chief Superintendent Hogg’s team. Mr Wintour told them he wished to read this statement to them in the presence of his client.
Ten minutes later Sweetman was brought in, looking pale and sweaty. His solicitor sat beside him. The two detectives sat across the table, pens poised over their notebooks. Mr Wintour asked for a glass of water. While he waited, he quietly hummed Prokofiev’s ‘Dance of the Knights’. When the water arrived, and he had taken a sip, he began reading.
My name is Brendan Sweetman, of 15 Thornhill Crescent, Coolock, Dublin 5. DOB 16/6/1969. I am married, a father of three, and am in regular employment as a security officer in the city centre. Some weeks ago, I was offered a chance to take part in what I knew to be an illegal undertaking, the hold-up of a cash-and-carry premises in Crumlin. Although I had successfully extricated myself from a lifestyle that involved criminal activity, for which I paid my debt to society, on this occasion I succumbed to temptation due to financial worries about the medical needs of my infant child. It was my belief that this undertaking would be carried out in a considered manner, with no personal injuries inflicted on members of the public. Only at the last minute did I discover the true nature of the project. I tried to withdraw but was subjected to threats from the initiator of the project, Mr Frank Crowe, and I reluctantly went along with it. The others involved with what turned out to
be a kidnap, apart from Mr Crowe, were Martin Paxton and a man known to me as ‘Dolly Finn. Certain facilities were provided by the late Adrian Moffat – known, I believe, as Milky. At no stage did I hurt or threaten the victim of this crime, Mrs Angela Kennedy. I took no part in making decisions and at all times acted on orders given under serious threat of physical harm. I was in the house when a violent assault was carried out on Mrs Kennedy by Mr Frank Crowe and I am willing to give evidence to that effect should it be necessary. I took no part in that assault and I wish to express my deepest remorse for my involvement in this unfortunate chain of events.
The solicitor took another sip of water. ‘My client has indicated to me his willingness to cooperate with the authorities in order to help bring this unhappy affair to a swift conclusion. To that end, he suggests that information in his possession may or may not be useful. However, it’s my professional advice that he makes no other statement until such time as I feel it’s in his best interests to do so.’
One of the detectives leaned towards Sweetman. ‘Why did you go along with it? When you found out it was a kidnap, why did you—’
The solicitor shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I must insist—’
Brendan leaned towards the detective. ‘Easy for you to say.’ He ignored his solicitor’s upraised hand. ‘Not so easy when you’re dealing with a nutter like Frankie Crowe. I mean, you don’t know what he’s like. He’s fucking mad.’
‘That’s enough,’ the solicitor said. ‘That’s quite enough.’ He stood up. ‘Gendemen, I must ask you to return my client to his cell.’ He put both his palms on the table and leaned forward. In a quiet voice he said, ‘If, perhaps, your superiors have anything to say about any mitigating statements they might wish to make to the court, during my client’s eventual trial, I’d be available at the shortest notice. Delay on this matter, in my opinion, would not be in the interests of your ongoing enquiries. Nor, indeed, in the wider interests of justice.’
The Minister for Justice was at the Westbury Hotel along with the Taoiseach and two junior ministers, attending a fund-raising lunch for the party, when the call came through from Assistant Commissioner Colin O’Keefe. No, O’Keefe told the minister’s aide, he would not like to leave a message. No, it wouldn’t be all right if the minister rang him back when he had a break from his current duties.
O’Keefe said, ‘Just get him and no more bullshit.’
The minister took the mobile and went into a corridor. O’Keefe told him, ‘She’s out, Mrs Kennedy is safe.’
‘Jesus. That’s great.’
‘And she’s OK. A bit bashed about, but alive.’
‘Thank God. What happened?’
‘We got a lead, she was found at a house in Killester, there was a bit of a shoot-out.’
‘And?’
‘One gang member dead, two in custody, at least one got away at the scene, and there was no sign of the leader, Frankie Crowe.’
‘The money?’
‘No sign so far.’
‘My sincere congratulations, Assistant Commissioner. Listen, pass on my congratulations to Chief Superintendent Hogg. I’ll formally thank him at a more opportune time.’
The minister felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see two of the guests at the fund-raiser preparing to leave. One was a public-relations consultant and the other a builder responsible for many of Dublin’s new apartments. The builder pointed at his watch, arced a thumb down the corridor towards the hotel lobby, then turned the gesture into a thumbs up. The minister said ‘Sorry—’ into the phone and he reached forward and shook hands first with the builder, then with his companion.
‘God bless, take care—’ He returned the thumbs up as he spoke again into the phone, ‘Sorry about that.’
O’Keefe kept his tone even. ‘Apart from a serious facial wound and two members with minor injuries, there were no garda casualties.’
‘Fine, that’s splendid. Should I – where is the, where’s Mrs Kennedy? Should I go see her?’
‘The Blackrock Clinic. I don’t think she’s up to visitors. There’s something else. She’s having an HIV test.’
‘Fuck. What happened?’
‘The gang leader, Crowe.’
‘Ah, Jesus.’
The minister’s voice took on the tone of a press release. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re still free to authorise whatever is necessary in the way of overtime or additional resources. We’ve got the victim back, but there’ll be no let-up until the leader of this gang of thugs is where he belongs.’
26
Stephen Beckett, in black T-shirt and black underpants, grunted and sat upright on the edge of his bed. He straightened his back, ran a hand through his tangled grey hair, and took a long deep breath. Getting out of bed was one of the many routine activities he found troublesome these days. Performing each movement carefully, he let one knee down on to the worn green carpet, then the other knee, one hand on the bed, the other briefly touching a nearby wooden chair until he was sure his balance was right, then he was kneeling alongside the bed.
Jesus God, who’d’ve thought it.
It was the best part of seventy years since the days when kneeling by his bed, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, was a part of his life.
Gave up that oul shite before I got into long trousers, and now look at me.
It wasn’t prayer that had him on his knees these days but the physiotherapist up in Dublin that his GP recommended. It was like something had worn away inside Stephen’s back, and the pain that used to afflict him occasionally was now a nagging part of most days.
‘First thing in the morning, it takes less than a minute,’ the physio said, ‘on your knees, loosen up the spine, you’ll notice the difference.’
From the kneeling position, Stephen went down on all fours, then slowly pushed his buttocks back towards his heels, feeling the stretch in his spine, stopping just the right side of pain. Five times back, then five times to each side, then another five times back, and he’d live to fight another day.
Using the bed and the chair to hold on to, he stood up, a tall man pushing eighty, big-boned, his hair as thick on his head as it was when he was young, but now even that dull grey crop looked tired. Big day ahead. Today he had to decide if he would kill a man.
On his bedside table, lying on top of a red and white hand towel, there was a dull grey pistol, a Colt .45.
Stephen had left Meath in 1942, when he was seventeen. He had the muscle and the ambition to thrive on the building sites in London. Bugger all for him at home. Strong and tall as he was, snagging turnips for pennies would have knackered his back long before now.
After a few months in London, he joined the army and in the weeks after D-Day he was among the thousands who broke out from the Normandy beaches, pushing the German army back, from hedgerow to village to hedgerow to town, and always another treacherous hedgerow.
‘Oh,’ a man named Benny said, quietly. He was walking alongside Stephen Beckett, part of a patrol beyond Caen, on the way to Falaise, several weeks after D-Day. Following days of heavy fighting, things had been quiet all morning, apart from an intermittent mortar duel. Talking about it later, none of the soldiers remembered hearing the shot. One second Benny was there alongside Stephen, then he was on his knees, then toppling on to his side, rolling over on to his back, the dark stain on his chest growing bigger by the heartbeat, and within a second or two there was a machine gun’s harsh burp and Benny’s mates were scattering and he called weakly for help, his hands quivering down by his sides. He continued calling for help for the next twenty minutes, his life’s blood pumping out of him, and every time someone moved to go towards him there was a blizzard of bullets from the German position. He didn’t scream, just called out in a frayed voice for help, usually ending each appeal with a drawn-out ‘Please’. The unit was isolated and pinned down. Attempts to break out to either flank cost two soldiers their lives and left another with a bullet-smashed elbow.
; Benny’s cries were relendess. Stephen saw one of the sergeants gesture to another, his suggestion obvious. A mercy shot? The other sergeant thought for a moment, then shook his head.
It wasn’t long before Benny stopped begging and began cursing his comrades, screaming obscenities and damning them all to hell. Then he begged God for help and called for his mother, his cries growing weaker, intermittent and more bitter, the ground around him soaked with his blood. Eventually, the cries stopped and Benny died.
After a while, a Centaur tank came up the road and dealt with the Germans, about half a dozen of them grouped at the edge of an orchard on a commanding rise about three hundred metres away. Two of them were still alive when the tank had done its work. They surrendered, both of them wounded and bloody, and Stephen Beckett and his comrades talked about it for a while, a note of hysteria running through their chatter. Then Stephen and a blond bloke named Carter took the two Germans into a ditch and shot them. One of the Germans said nothing, the other – a private, hardly twenty – began praying aloud when he realised what was about to happen. Just before the bullet in the back of the head silenced him, he sobbed, his breaths coming in gulps. The other one, early thirties, a sergeant, a sullen, dark-eyed bastard with a hand wound, said nothing.
Before and after that incident, Stephen Beckett fought in several intense actions. He’d certainly shot at other soldiers and probably killed some of them, but none of that lodged in his mind like the image of that dark-eyed bastard. There was hardly a week since that Stephen didn’t think of him, and the way he showed no fear as he waited. It was as if the man accepted that his life had come down to the remaining seconds in that godforsaken ditch, and he was determined he’d live it as whatever he chose to be, refusing to allow fear or hope or even anger to commandeer the small sliver of life left to him. When his comrade was shot he looked briefly at the crumpled body, then he examined his wounded hand, rearranging the grubby bandage. He waited with neither anxiety nor resignation, just watching what was happening, and then he died.
Little Criminals Page 27