Last Orders
Book 4 of The Dublin Trilogy
Caimh McDonnell
McFori Ink
Copyright © 2018 by McFori Ink
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13 978-0-9955075-7-9
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Free Stuff
Acknowledgments
Also by Caimh McDonnell
“You will be haunted by three spirits.”
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Prologue
January 2018
DI Jimmy Stewart (retired) stood by the side of the Finglas Road, his umbrella one amongst many. The crowd was two to three people deep on both sides, as far as the eye could see. The rain had been coming down steadily all morning. Small patches of snow lay about the place, fading to nothing, a memory of another world; one that had been covered in white and full of the joys of Christmas. Not that he had particularly enjoyed Christmas. Behind him, in Glasnevin Cemetery, a snowman leaned sadly, shrinking to nothing.
Stewart had been unable to get into the church. In hindsight, maybe they should have put a PA system outside, but nobody had known how big an event this would be. It wasn’t a state funeral or a celebrity, after all, it was just an ordinary man. No, that wasn’t right. He was a lot of things, but you probably couldn’t hang ordinary on him.
You wouldn’t have said he was popular, as such, though everyone certainly knew who he was. He lived in that space between legend, cautionary tale and bogeyman. A man out of time. A man in possession of his own moral code, one that put him out of step with the world around him. He had also been a world-class pain in the arse, which shouldn’t be forgotten. He hadn’t been a member of An Garda Síochána for a couple of years now, having retired not long after Stewart, so the top brass were spared from putting in an appearance. Stewart had rung Wilson, his former protégé from his time in the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, to see if he wanted to come, but unusually there’d been no answer. Since Stewart’s retirement, he and Wilson had become good friends, though neither of them dared call it that. Wilson would come around for regular chats and Stewart would give him the benefit of his forty years of law enforcement experience. God, he missed the job. More than anything, although he would be loath to admit it, he missed the people. In that regard, today had been a trip down memory lane. As he’d walked along the road, he’d seen a lot of familiar faces. The rank and file had turned out in great numbers, because they remembered this man for exactly the reasons that the top brass wanted to forget him. Everybody had a story.
Not that it was mainly Gardaí. The numbers from the force were dwarfed by the ordinary people. There were other faces Stewart recognised amongst the crowd. The Dublin criminal fraternity had come to pay their respects too. Stewart had passed a couple of faces he was sure had spent several years up in Mountjoy Prison thanks to the man’s efforts. Still, they looked solemn. Not a hint of a smirk to be seen.
The parade came around the corner, for that is what it surely was. It wasn’t official, but somebody somewhere must have been watching, or one of those who were there in an unofficial capacity had made a call. Uniforms had hurriedly closed off the road. The parade was coming regardless and the sheer weight of numbers meant it wouldn’t be stopped. Like the man himself, an unstoppable force.
Behind the hearse, they came in red line after red line, some of them wearing the jerseys of Saint Jude’s hurling team, most of them older, just wearing whatever red they had. The current team, then the ones past. They seemed to be walking in rough age groups. Someone might have suggested it, or maybe it had just happened, those who had played together standing side by side as they followed him one last time.
As the hearse passed him, Stewart lowered his head. He wasn’t a religious man, but still – respect was respect, and this man had truly earned it.
Alongside the coffin, which was draped in a jersey with a hurley lying across it, a massive wreath of flowers spelt out his name.
Bunny.
Chapter One
12 December 2017
Detective Superintendent Susan Burns stepped out of the car and straight into a puddle. “Arse biscuits!”
“Everything alright, chief?”
“Yeah, fine,” she said, looking down at her sodden left shoe. “It’d just be nice if, every now and then, somebody dug up a body in a nice clean hole on Grafton Street, with mud-free paving stones and decent coffee in close proximity.”
“Yes, chief.”
“Speaking of my shoes, are you going to be alright with this?”
“Absolutely,” said Detective Donnacha Wilson, failing to hide his annoyance at the question. The first time they had met, Wilson had lost his breakfast at the sight of a dead body, destroying her brand new pair of Louboutins in the process and cementing himself in the minds of his Garda colleagues as “Chucker” Wilson for evermore. The year before that, he had similarly parted ways with his lunch over the remains of a man he had just shot. The fact that the dead guy was a highly trained assassin who had been milliseconds away from killing two innocent members of the public, and in all probability Wilson’s partner, was never remembered. The vomiting, however, much to Detective Wilson’s chagrin, had proven unforgettable.
Burns started walking up the slope towards the building site, ignoring the squelching noise that greeted every other step. Wilson followed in her wake. Today had started badly and was only going to get
worse. Her days of visiting gravesites should really be over, but what the Gardaí called “historic deaths” were a politically charged issue due to the amount of IRA victims who had been “disappeared” over the years, their bodies never recovered. As far as DSI Burns was concerned, this was either going to be the resolution of a missing person case – for which her team would receive no credit – or a murder that they would have virtually no chance of clearing. Half the time when long-dead bodies were recovered, it wasn’t possible to even identify the murderee, thus making any hope of nabbing the murderer a pipe dream. She was aware thinking in such terms would be considered heartless by many people, but those people didn’t have to sit in budget meetings with accountants who had calculated the cost per murder solved.
It was still only 2pm on a crappy winter’s day, but what little light there had been was fading fast. The location for this new Environment Appreciation Centre had been picked for the magnificent vista of the Wicklow Mountains it offered. It would no doubt provide a delightful backdrop when the Minister for Tourism came to cut the ribbon in May, but nearing the end of a dreary December day that never got going, the effect was somewhat lost. The builders had only got as far as digging the foundations and they were about to be thrown way off schedule. They had already faced delays of a few weeks thanks to the time it took to get hippies out of trees. As the national newspaper coverage could attest, quite a lot of people thought the environment was best appreciated by not being dug up, chopped down or paved over.
About half a dozen workmen sat around outside a Portakabin, supping tea and enjoying being paid for doing nothing. There was an unmistakable air of celebration. If this really kicked off, there could be overtime somewhere down the line. Fingers crossed the Minister for Tourism had a holiday booked.
As Burns and Wilson walked past, a voice rose up to follow them. “Alright, sweetheart, give us a wave.”
“You heard the man, Wilson.”
“Very funny, chief.”
“That’s a fine ass. I’d throw it into that. Hard!”
DSI Burns executed an about turn in one fluid motion, complete with squelch. Her bad mood had just met someone utterly deserving of it.
As she walked towards the men, there was a mix of facial expressions ranging from embarrassment to the giddy excitement of schoolboys. She’d not seen who the comment had come from, but she didn’t need to. He was about six stone overweight and two turns over ugly, with a bulbous nose, ratty eyes and impressive collection of chins. He was the only one dumb enough to be looking at her defiantly, a sneer across his face – a face that only a mother could love, though Burns would have laid good money she hadn’t.
“What was that you said?”
“Just a bit a banter, darling.”
“I see. And was there something in the way I was walking by, going about my job, that made you think I’d be up for some of your top-notch sexually explicit banter?”
The ratty eyes looked past her to Wilson. “Jesus, fella, is she always this much of a moody bitch?”
A couple of his co-workers laughed, though Burns was pleased to see a couple of more looked embarrassed.
“I am always this much of a moody bitch. Yes. You see, it’s the pressures of the job. Us silly little women aren’t built to cope with the stresses of the really important work, y’know, like digging holes. Instead we have to stick to the simpler things, like… ” She allowed herself a little flash of showmanship as she pulled out her ID and snapped it open in one fluid motion “Detective Superintendent in the Garda Síochána.”
The king of banter’s grin froze into an enjoyable rigor mortis impression of itself, his eyes having registered the change in the wind but the message not reaching all of his face yet. In his defence, he had a lot of face to reach.
“You see, unfortunately, I’m an officer of the law and you’ve committed an offence as laid out in the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997, subsection ten dash one: harassment. As I’m sure you know, being such an intelligent man, you can face a fine of five thousand euros and up to twelve months imprisonment for said offence.”
“It was just a bit of—”
“Banter,” finished Burns. “Yes, you said. Do you want to know how many times in my career in law enforcement I’ve charged and brought someone before the courts and not gotten a conviction?”
“Alright, look, I—”
“None. Zero. Zip. I’m guessing the same amount of women who you have satisfied sexually in your sorry existence. You see, unlike you, I’m incredible at screwing people – and when I screw someone, they stay screwed. I’ve had more convictions than you’ve had hot dinners, and by the look of you, that’s a lot. So, in summary, you’ve lost your job, you’re looking at twelve months in prison and you’d be amazed how many favours people who’re locked up owe a DSI in the Gardaí. Wilson, do you remember Gary Abbot?”
“Yes, boss. Drug dealer that we got last year for killing his supplier with a baseball bat.”
“Do you remember how happy he was when I didn’t prosecute his ma, even though he’d been storing his stash in her garage?”
“I do, boss. He cried like a baby.”
“Do you think he’d be happy to arrange a little date for our friend here?”
“I’m sure he would.”
DSI Burns gave the delightfully mute moron her most winning of smiles. “So, at least you’ll finally have sex with someone you didn’t have to pay for it. Now, two choices: one, point me in the direction of your boss so we can get the ball rolling on your new life…”
“Please don’t—”
“Or…” She left a deliberately long pause, which remained unfilled. Neither the king of banter nor any of his supporting cast were feeling chatty anymore. “Or,” she repeated, “‘Macarena’.”
“What?”
“I’d like to see you shaking that fine ass.”
“Ehm, but how can I…”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, pointing at the other men, “they’ll all sing the song for you. Unless they’d like me to go and talk to the boss about how they facilitated the antisocial behaviour of a co-worker?”
Five minutes later, Detective Wilson and DSI Burns had signed in on the crime scene log and were standing outside the flaps of the tent that the Technical Bureau had erected. Burns leaned on Wilson as she pulled on the foot coverings that went with the mandatory plastic overalls.
“I was surprised he knew all the words,” said Wilson. “I mean, the ‘Macarena’ is quite old now, isn’t it?”
“Are you making a crack about my age, Wilson?”
“Oh, God no, boss.”
Burns sighed. This was the problem with being intimidating: it made jokes a lot harder. Sometimes she considered holding up a sign.
“Remind me to never piss you off, chief.”
“We’ve been working together for over a year now, Wilson, I’d have thought you would no longer need reminding. Speaking of which…” Burns nodded towards the tent flaps. “Last chance. You can stay outside if you like?”
“Absolutely not, boss.”
“Fair enough. Be it on your own head – or at least somebody else’s shoes.” DSI Burns glanced at her watch – 3:12pm – then pulled open the flap of the tent and walked inside.
Inside the tent were six people in Technical Bureau overalls, two of whom were down in the hole, taking photographs, while the others stood around watching them. There were two tables, each containing remains covered by white sheets.
“Hello, all,” said Burns, “is Dr Devane about?”
Devane was the state pathologist, and she and Burns, while not exactly friends, had at least a very good working relationship.
“I’m afraid not,” came the voice from down in the hole. “She’s in the UK on a course until tomorrow. You’re stuck with me.”
Burns faked a smile and swore internally; her day wasn’t set to improve anytime soon. Phillips was Devane’s second-in-command. He was decent at the job but he
did have a love of technical jargon and a bedside manner that made pathology a logical career choice, the dead being rarely inclined to complain.
Phillips climbed up a stepladder to get out of the eight-foot-deep section of trench. He was a tall, thin man. Burns didn’t know if pathology attracted people who didn’t eat much, or if being around bodies so often permanently dampened the appetite, but the result was always the same. Identifying members of the Tech Bureau team was tricky: every last one of them was a stick-thin figure wearing a face mask and identical overalls.
“So, what do we have?”
“A mass grave.”
Burns felt Wilson stiffen beside her, probably because he was less familiar with Isaac Phillip’s irritating manner than she was. “By which you mean two or more bodies.” She indicated the two tables to the left of the hole. “I assume it is just the two?”
Phillips shrugged. “For the moment. We might need to check the surrounding area.” Somewhere, the Minister for Tourism had just felt somebody walk across his grave.
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 1