Trespass

by Anthony J. Quinn

  He put the book away and collected his thoughts. He was still angry but he felt resigned to whatever decision the inquiry panel made about his fitness to return to normal detective duties. Whatever the outcome, he shouldn’t stay any longer in the house. There was nothing he could do here to advance the search for the missing boy. He was an intruder, acting without any official permission, pointlessly sniffing around the traces of a suspected child kidnapper, a flawed detective who had been content to continue with the sham of his career in Armagh courthouse, living off the scraps of his colleagues’ work. He was in danger of no longer fitting in, of joining the ranks of people like O’Sullivan and his clan.

  As this melancholy thought filled his mind, the sound of breaking glass made him start. He peeked outside in time to see three men climb through one of the ground-floor windows. He did not move, holding his breath and listening intently. He was reluctant to phone his police colleagues in case they asked awkward questions about why he was in the house in the first place.

  ‘Spread out and do the ground floor first,’ one of the men ordered. ‘Then we’ll do the bedrooms.’ His voice wielded the dangerous authority of a criminal.

  ‘What should we be looking for?’ asked a younger voice.

  ‘Any documents to do with Mary O’Sullivan. Letters, newspaper clippings, official documents.’

  Daly heard the resounding thud of drawers hitting the floor.

  ‘We’re in a gypsy’s house. They don’t keep official documents. Most of them can’t even read or write.’

  ‘He’s right. What if these documents don’t exist?’

  ‘Think about it,’ said their apparent leader. ‘If the documents didn’t exist, why is my boss willing to pay so much money for them?’

  They began ripping apart furniture downstairs. Daly could hear the shuffle and squeak of furniture being moved, the commotion shifting from room to room. The methodical sound of their destruction suggested they had done this before. He hung back in the bedroom, feeling cowardly about what might happen if he pushed the door open and confronted the men. He glanced through the crack in the door, and felt a chill travel down his spine – not fear, but a strange apprehension he could not precisely fathom, the sense that he was neither guest nor violent intruder in O’Sullivan’s mansion. He was simply a mute presence, a ghost, trying to blend in with the shadows.

  He tried to focus on the intruders’ movements, their precise locations on the ground floor. He heard more snippets of conversation. He concentrated and tried to put them together and work out what exactly they were looking for.

  ‘Who is this woman, anyway?’ asked one of the younger voices.

  ‘She disappeared a long time ago. If you want to know anything else I suggest you leave right now.’

  ‘I take it her disappearance was no accident. Else your boss would be paying us to look for her body, rather than these documents.’

  The youngest of the voices spoke again. ‘Why should your boss give a shit about a dead gypsy?’ He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  ‘He cares enough to share his mountain of money with us. Trust me on this. Anything you’ve earned before is peanuts compared to what is on offer.’ The older voice paused. ‘Any more questions and I’ll find someone else to help me. You can go back to your dirty little smuggling jobs and wonder what you missed.’

  They were quiet for a while, taking things more slowly, moving carefully from room to room, standing silently for long periods. Daly was going to have to devote all his attention to not being discovered.

  ‘The toilet downstairs isn’t working.’

  ‘Then check it out.’

  ‘Already have. There’s a tonne of cash in the drain.’

  ‘Any documents to do with Mary O’Sullivan there?’

  ‘No. Just money.’

  ‘Then put it all back together again.’

  The house became completely silent. Daly could hear only his breathing. He peeked out at the dark landing and the sweeping staircase with the elaborately carved roses on the banisters. It was hard to hold on to his sense of calm. A cold anticipation took over as he waited, hoping that the intruders had found what they were looking for and left.

  Then a voice echoed up the stairs. ‘The two of you start doing the bedrooms.’

  Daly thumbed in O’Neill’s number on his mobile, but it went straight to an answer message. He cursed under his breath. The men seemed to have heard something. They stopped speaking, and then a set of footsteps approached the bedroom door. Daly had a very bad feeling about how this was going to end.

  A man wearing a balaclava and wielding a crowbar stepped into the room. He gave a start when he saw Daly standing by the bed. Restraining his first impulse, which was to run past him and out of the door, the detective returned his surprised gaze and nodded slowly, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a burglary to be disturbed in this way. He also raised his empty hands slightly, just enough to let the intruder see he was unarmed.

  ‘You’re not O’Sullivan,’ said the man, pointing his crowbar at Daly’s face.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then what the fuck are you doing hiding up here?’

  Caught out again, thought Daly. The question reminded him of Irwin in the courthouse yesterday.

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ he said in a harmless tone.

  ‘Get down on the ground.’

  Daly stumbled back as the man swung the crowbar in the air, narrowly missing his face.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Daly. The man’s eyes and mouth were the only features visible through the mask. Strung-out-looking eyes with dilated pupils, and a sneering mouth with evidence of a youthful-looking moustache: the worst possible opponent for a defenceless police detective.

  ‘Shut up,’ said the intruder. He grabbed Daly and drove his head against the wall. The impact left the detective reeling, conscious only of the weight of the assailant’s breath and its sharp reek, his physical nearness, and a hammering in his ears. He saw the flash of a knife’s blade and felt it draw along his neck, cold and rough.

  ‘There are police officers on their way,’ Daly said. ‘You won’t get away with this.’ He craned round to make eye contact. A pair of dark pupils locked on to his. His own pupils contracted in that pitiless gaze.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. What the fuck are you doing here?’

  Daly heard the uncertainty in the young man’s voice. It was clear that he had given the assailant a nasty surprise, that being disturbed in the middle of a house raid was uncharted terrain for him, and he was now trying to work out what to do. Daly felt the knife climb higher against his windpipe. This was new ground for both of them. Meeting as strangers in this silent, desolate house, a knife-edge the primary focus of their interaction.

  ‘What have you heard? Do you know our names?’

  Daly shook his head and croaked a response.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Daly leaned back, trying to make some part of his body other than his neck take the strain of the intruder’s uncertainty.

  ‘You’re fucking lying. You know too much.’

  The intruder tightened his grip on the knife and his eyes opened deeper into a new darkness, full of youthful determination and contempt for life. Daly felt suspended from a dangerous height, about to be flung with a jerk of the intruder’s wrist into a bottomless drop.

  The sound of heavier footsteps in the room made them both turn round. The bigger man strolling into the room wore a balaclava also. He approached Daly’s assailant and, without pause, took aim with his large boot and kicked him in the backside. There was something relaxed and deliberate in his manner as he took another aim at the assailant, low and hard, as though hammering a football into the back of a net. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Get out and let me deal with this.’

  Daly crouched on his hands and knees and clambered away.

  The new arrival took the knife from the younger man and slipped it into his pocket, and then he sl
apped him with his open hand across the side of his head. ‘I’m the one in charge here, not you. Go on, get out of here.’

  He gave a brief, annoyed sigh and stared at Daly. He picked the crowbar off the ground and poked the detective in the chest. ‘Who the fuck are you? You’re not an O’Sullivan. I can tell that right away.’

  For the first time, Daly picked up a slight American accent in his voice.

  ‘Why should it matter who I am?’ Daly crawled to his feet and edged towards the other side of the bed. His sense of relief was short-lived.

  ‘You’re right. All that matters is that you’re not a fucking O’Sullivan.’ He followed Daly and nudged him again with the crowbar. ‘What are you doing in his bedroom?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that,’ said Daly quietly.

  ‘Why not?’ A look of contempt flashed in his bulging eyes.

  ‘Because I said so.’

  The masked man stared at Daly thoughtfully. He seemed to be weighing up his options. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here, but I can smell you. You’re a fucking policeman.’

  Daly decided to tell the truth. ‘You’re right. I’m a detective inspector.’

  The intruder asked for Daly’s ID and he handed it over.

  ‘So it’s you, Inspector Celcius Daly,’ he said, as though they were old acquaintances.

  ‘I’m here investigating the disappearance of a boy.’

  ‘A boy?’

  ‘He went missing earlier this afternoon.’

  ‘And you think O’Sullivan’s to blame?’

  Daly nodded and the masked man’s attitude changed. He grew interested.

  ‘The sick old bastard,’ he said.

  The other two intruders stood watching them. Only their eyes seemed alive as they flicked back and forth between the two.

  ‘Just so you know, this isn’t a routine inquiry,’ said Daly. ‘Time is of the utmost importance. I assume you came here because you knew O’Sullivan was away. Right now, I need you to answer one important question.’

  The masked man said nothing.

  ‘Where is O’Sullivan?’

  Daly also wanted to ask him about the documents he was searching for, but in the circumstances, he thought that might be pushing it. His adversary looked and sounded too smooth and hard to be a common burglar. He was collected enough to think calmly and wrest the utmost advantage from their encounter.

  ‘If time is of the essence, Inspector, then it’s bad luck you bumped into us.’ Again, Daly heard the American twang in his voice.

  ‘A child’s life is at risk,’ said Daly. ‘Tell me what you know about O’Sullivan.’

  The intruder frowned through his mask. He rested the crowbar’s weight on Daly’s shoulder. ‘Patience, Celcius Daly. This is not the time to lose your temper.’

  ‘You’re going to have to put that down.’

  ‘Like I said earlier, I’m the one in charge here.’ He waved the crowbar in Daly’s face. ‘I should be the one giving the orders. Not you.’ He circled Daly again. ‘Agreed?’

  Daly nodded. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  The detective glanced at the other two intruders. It was demoralizing for members of a team to be standing idle and the slow escalation of tension made them agitated at their lack of involvement. Daly watched them move about in the corner of his vision. They made the room feel very crowded.

  ‘O’Sullivan is a gypsy, and I don’t like his clan,’ said the leader, walking up and down in front of Daly. ‘I don’t like the way they look. I don’t like the way they talk and I don’t like the way they do business. In the old days, we would have burnt them out.’

  He took a calm pride in his little speech, prancing before Daly as though he were on freer and firmer ground than anyone else in the room. It was never the nervous ones who wanted to pose and strut, thought Daly. The intruder craved to be the centre of attention and Daly tried to supply enough to keep him content.

  Daly gave another slow nod. ‘Where is O’Sullivan now?’

  ‘Celebrating his daughter’s wedding,’ the masked man told Daly. ‘The O’Sullivans are always marrying off their children – that is, when they’re not murdering each other. You’ll find him at Ryan’s Corner, drunk and acting the big, caring, paranoid father of the bride, buying drinks for everyone and itching to shoot his new son-in-law.’

  He walked over to the window and peered outside at the gates. ‘We’ll be going now, Inspector. If you’re talking to O’Sullivan, watch the old bastard doesn’t swindle you into buying a horse or a greyhound.’ He circled Daly again and pointed the crowbar at his skull. ‘I’m going to give you a warning before I go and a little tickle on the knee. Don’t try to follow us.’

  Without further ado, he swung the crowbar in the air and delivered a crushing blow to Daly’s right knee that doubled him up in pain. Daly had forgotten to answer him with an unhurried nod. Perhaps he had underestimated the value of the correct body language.

  ‘I’m a police detective,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And I’m charging you with burglary, criminal damage and assaulting a police officer.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m under arrest?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Another blow swung and struck him on the left knee. Daly was convinced now that the leader was a former paramilitary, one newly returned from a stint in the United States, lying low until the ceasefire took hold. It was the practised ease of his movements, his way of standing squarely, the confidence of his voice as he addressed Daly.

  ‘I plead guilty on all counts, Inspector.’

  By comparison, the other two intruders looked uncertain and nervous, barely men at all, and certainly not hardened criminals. Their white eyes followed the arc of the crowbar, miming its violence in their imaginations. The next blow left Daly almost fainting with the pain. Surely, there was a limit to the leader’s violence. He would not seriously harm him, a senior detective, trying to find a missing child, but Daly was dealing with an ex-paramilitary, not an ordinary criminal, one obviously practised in the art of torture and intimidation. A ruthless man without any limits whatsoever. The detective’s presence in the bedroom was a conundrum he did not have time to unravel. The search for the boy meant nothing to him.

  Crouching now on the ground, the masked man began to kick Daly. There was no point shouting for help. How could anyone hear him in that desolate housing estate? He kept his mind focused on protecting his vital organs, curling his body against the man’s boot, unsure if the creaking noise he heard was the floorboards shifting under the dancing weight of the intruder or the bones of his ribcage jumping from the torment. The masked intruder loomed over Daly’s sprawling body, taking breath before kicking him again, this time right in the face. At once, Daly’s nose bled and pinpoints of light flared in his vision. He rolled over and gagged, a drumming roar filling his ears, the blood welling in his mouth and throat. He gasped and choked for breath. He looked up at the glare of light, and saw the intruder’s fiendish body writhing, swinging his boot again. He closed his eyes, the tears welling up. They were not tears of pain or even sorrow. They were tears of relief. I am gone, he said to himself. Finally gone. His mind shone with that happy thought and soared, making a mockery of his body’s pummelling ordeal.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Samuel Reid hunkered on top of the bales, cramped and unsteady, the ripe sweet smell of the hay mingling in his nostrils with the stench of the dead pig, which dangled before him, its paunchy belly poking through the badly fitting uniform.

  Desperately, he tried to distinguish the figure in the darkness. He moved a couple of paces to the left and then to the right, attempting to see behind the carcass.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.

  He found it impossible to ignore the pig’s lifeless eyes, its swinging body, its trotters tiptoeing in the empty air.

  The figure of a man loomed towards Reid, the bales shifting as they took his weight.

  ‘It’s you,�
� said Reid, recognizing his visitor at once.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Sammy, hasn’t it?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  The figure stared at him with hard unblinking eyes.

  ‘Why are you watching me?’ asked Reid, sounding almost embarrassed by the silent menace that filled the air, as though it somehow indicated a failure of his hospitality.

  ‘I haven’t come to watch you.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Reid was puzzled, annoyed even. The proximity of the gypsy camp had made him familiar with late-night intruders. He had lost his fear of human shadows in the darkness.

  ‘I’ve a message from your old friends in the Strong Ulster Foundation.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘You’ve upset them. They don’t like this idea of you raking over the past.’

  ‘What was I meant to do? The gypsies have been harassing me, asking difficult questions.’

  The carcass swung back and forth, its little piggy eyes peeking at both of them.

  ‘You could have chased them away with your gun at any time,’ said the visitor with scorn. ‘Something else has troubled you. Something else is keeping you awake at night and haunting you during the day.’

  ‘What else would trouble me?’

  ‘A memory. A secret from the past. You saw us take away Mary O’Sullivan, didn’t you?’

  This time Reid kept his silence.

  ‘Were you afraid at the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because she had done harm to many people and was in grave danger?’

  ‘I suspected she was an informer.’

  ‘But that didn’t stop you running after her like a lovesick puppy. You told her about our movements along the border, the times of our patrols, our weak points. And now you feel guilty because your indiscretions led to her death.’

  ‘Yes, damn you, the guilt is always there.’ Reid spoke thickly, releasing compressed breath.

  ‘You should know that we didn’t intend to kill her. Her death was an unfortunate accident. The night we took her away for questioning, we only intended to scare her off, but when we stopped the car to let her use the toilet, she ran away with the hood still over her head. She made off in the direction of an old quarry. We tried to stop her, but she slipped over the edge. We spent hours crawling around that godforsaken rat-hole, lighting our way with boxes of matches, staring into pools of deep water that had collected at the bottom, but we never found her body.’