Keanu stirred, and the dark corner where his stroller was parked filled with squawks and gurgles. If she had been able to roll the wheelchair towards him, Dymphna would have cradled him in her arms for once and sung a lullaby to send him back to slumber. The song would be, of course, that one about the halo by Beyoncé (the diva one; her daughter was as yet unborn and had still to record any songs). As it was, Dymphna couldn’t reach Keanu, so she ground her teeth at the unbearable racket instead.
Fionnuala was inspecting her teeth for lipstick in the mirror when she realized it was probably one of those high-class two-way ones she had seen on TV. The officers on the other side were probably fiddling with themselves as they checked her out! she thought.
“Youse filthy pervs!” she mouthed, lips stretched in disgust, then scuttled back to the hideous metal chair at its matching table. The strip of light on the ceiling kept crackling and flickering. They could have had the decency to give her a room with functioning electrics, she thought, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently.
Inspector McLaughlin and one of his minions entered the room. Fionnuala searched their hands for the video, but they held only files. The minion was a hard-faced wee cunt barely out of diapers. Her brown hair was pulled so tightly on her skull she looked Asian. A Protestant, Fionnuala presumed, climbing the corporate ladder of the day’s police force with her legs spread wide.
“Finally we meet, Mrs. Flood,” Inspector McLaughlin said as he sat, and Fionnuala longed to slap the smarmy grin off his mustache. “I’m Inspector McLaughlin, and this be’s PC Morrissey.”
Fionnuala smirked. She knew a wife and mother should ask where they had hidden her husband and children, but she couldn’t be bothered wasting the breath. She decided to play the game.
“I’m innocent!” she barked. “What’ve ye chased us the length and breadth of Europe for?”
McLaughlin delved into a file and pulled out the artist’s sketch without looking at it; his eyes still smarting from the memory. He held it up to the suspect in the chair.
“Ye will agree this bears a remarkable resemblance to ye, aye?”
“Ach, looks more like me cousin Una, so it does. Sure, I haven’t them God-awful ponytails, so I haven’t. And bleached and all! What the bloody hell was she thinking, hi?”
“Actually, Mrs. Flood,” Hard-Faced Cunt said, “we’ve interviewed...” she glanced at a note “...Molly, the stylist at Xpressions hair salon, and she told us you had your hair, er, your look—remodeled—the other week. So we know this is you.”
“Aye, and? What of it?”
“We’ve had complaints that a woman matching this description, that is, you,” Hard-Faced Cunt’s eyes bored into Fionnuala, her promotion more secure with each sentence uttered, “instigated a riot outside the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow Girls’ School the other week. You caused thousands of pounds in damage to windows and other building parts.”
“Och, if that was me, and I’m not saying it was, mind, me fingers never clutched a rock. Youse kyanny bang me up for what eejits in the crowd decides to do in the heat of the moment.”
“And,” Inspector McLaughlin put in, “is it true ye be’s an OsteoCare provider?”
“Och, I’m too busy, sure, I’ve wanes aplenty, and an aul doddery mother of me own that needs constant care.” Fionnuala was confident her mate Aileen at OsteoCare, and even Mrs. Ming and Mrs. Gee, would never grass her up to the police. “Even if I was, since when does it be a crime to show Christian compassion to teetering aul folk what has one foot in the grave? If youse’ve no evidence, go on and release me now. The hunger be’s gnawing a hole in me stomach, sure, and I’m twisting me legs for a slash.”
PC Morrissey continued: “Not only do we have evidence taken from you at the ferry,” Fionnuala tensed; now her video would be revealed from whatever hidden pocket or nook it was stashed, “we also searched your house earlier—”
“Without me permission, like?”
“We had probable cause,” Inspector McLaughlin explained. “The lot of youse was fleeing the jurisdiction.”
“Och, trying to intimidate me, are ye, with them big words of yers, like ye’ve gone and swallowed a dictionary whole. Our trip on the ferry, is ye on about? We was on wer way to a family holiday in Malta, just, to visit me eldest daughter. She’s written a book, ye know.” Fionnuala wondered if this might suddenly make her not guilty, but they didn’t seem impressed. “And I’ll have youse know, I’m to be filing for compensation for all the money we splashed out on wer holiday. Highway robbery, the price of that ferry was for the state it was in.”
“What we’ve confiscated has now been entered into evidence, and our forensic lab will soon be going over it,” PC Morrissey said. She suddenly jumped up and exited the room.
Inspector McLaughlin touched Fionnuala’s hands. “Give yerself up, Mrs. Flood,” he said. “There’s only so much I can do, what with all the Proddies on the force I’m surrounded by.”
“Och, don’t ye good cop, bad cop me,” Fionnuala spat. “I’ve seen more episodes of Law and Order than ye’ve had hot dinners.”
Hard-Faced Cunt came back in, struggling under the weight of a box clutched in her hands, the fingernails of which, Fionnuala noted, were unpolished. She wondered if PC Morrissey might be the secret lesbian lover of the caterer who had given her the tomato sandwiches with no tops.
“These are just a selection, mind,” PC Morrissey said. She pulled out a bottle of absinthe swaddled in a plastic evidence bag. “There were many more in a crate found in the scullery of your house.”
“I found that absinthe down an alley in Creggan, so I did,” Fionnuala said. “Finding things doesn’t be a crime, sure!”
“Aye, but solicitation in pubs be’s,” Inspector McLaughlin said. “And the barmaid at the Craiglooner has identified you from the sketch. We might haul her in for a lineup.”
“Och, a misdemeanor, sure!” Fionnuala said, proud at using a four-syllable word and already planning her revenge on the snitch bartender bitch. “Ye surely wouldn’t send the chopper halfway across the Irish Sea for to arrest me for that, sure!”
“That is true,” PC Morrissey said. “But now we come to the matter that threatened national security, the reason we almost got the Secret Service and Interpol involved. You see, as serious as it is to be in possession of what you were, it is an even more serious crime to attempt to transport it across international borders, even borders between EU states—”
“Ye see, Mrs. Flood,” Inspector McLaughlin cut her off, his hand delving into the box. Fionnuala knew he was going for the video.
“It be’s mines! Mines!” Fionnuala screamed.
“And now it is ours.” McLaughlin smirked.
“I know the way youse work!” Fionnuala seethed, a trembling finger singling him out. “Ye’ve nicked it to snatch all the glory for yerself! Ye’re in a position of power, a disgusting, hateful Filth-master, and think ye’ve the right to trample over decent, God-fearing members of the down-trodden class the likes of me. Yer position in the Filth-force, staring down yer nose at us, allows ye to nick what ye like and claim possession of it for yerself. I’m warning ye, but, I’ll be on the phone to every newspaper the country over if ye claim that video be’s yers!”
Her body shuddered, her eyes crazed with rage atop a blood-colored face, spittle trailing down her chin.
The inspector and the minion exchanged a look of confusion.
“Video?” PC Morrissey asked.
“I don't know about any video, love,” Inspector McLaughlin said. “We’ve hauled ye and yer family down here for these.”
Inspector McLaughlin drew his hand out of the box, and in a plastic bag were clustered three cans: brussels sprouts, new potatoes and carrots.
“Are ye having me on?” Fionnuala asked. “Where be’s the video? The video that’s to be the most-watched video of wer time? The media sensation of the century?!”
McLaughlin stared.
“What are ye on about?�
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“Ye daft cunt! The secret illegal videotape of Princess Diana’s autopsy, sure!”
“Princess...!” McLaughlin sputtered, while the shocked PC Morrissey could no longer look anywhere near Fionnuala’s eyes, ashamed for the delusional creature across the table as she was. “I've never heard anything so ludicrous in me life! And, anyroad, what’s this media blitz ye’re on about? Ye’re talking out yer arse, woman! Who in their right mind...sputter! Sputter! Only the mentally deranged or severely depraved would want to look upon such a thing! If it existed. I feel unclean just imagining it! Naw, we've hauled ye in for smuggling dangerous contraband across EU lines.”
“Aye, and doesn’t the dangerous contraband be the video of one of the world's most beloved icons being sliced into?”
“It be’s the pigging Semtex explosives in these flimming tins of vegetables! An entire case of em, ye were trailing along on the ferry in yer daughter’s wheelchair! Enough to blow the town to bits three times over!”
“Och, wise up, ye!” Fionnuala gnawed on her lip, her brain struggling to comprehend. “But...but youse started trailing me after that eejit at the pawn shop made a call to youse. After I told yer man what be’s on the video, like. And quit gawping at me like I be’s deranged! And ye and all, ye lesbo-perv!”
But neither of them could quit gawping at her. McLaughlin tried to comport himself to normalcy.
“Naw, yer man at the pawn shop recognized ye as his mother bought mushy peas from ye at the Sav-U-Mor weeks ago, but when yer woman opened the tin at home they were anything but. She told her son, and they brought it down to the station. After forensics had a look, we realized the tin was filled with Semtex. We approached the owner of the Sav-U-Mor, Mr. Skivvins, and he told us about yer switch-and-bait, but yer man has been doctoring the books for years and had no real employee records, like, so he couldn’t tell us exactly who ye was. A Mrs. Flood, just, he hadn’t a clue as to yer first name, and there be’s hundreds of Floods in Derry, like. We hauled Skivvins in for tax evasion, but that be’s of no concern here.”
“How did youse find me, then?” Fionnuala had the intelligence to ask.
“We had a new satellite explosive-detection system installed the other day, been asking for it for years, like, but the budget was never there for it as the powers that be thinks the Troubles be’s at an end, like. Anyroad, we turned it on, and that case of tinned Semtex of yers was shining out all sorts of red signals. We just followed yer trail. Heart-scared, we was, when we saw youse had mobilized and was traipsing through the countryside. Now, Mrs. Flood, to the point. I do believe ye hadn’t a clue what be’s in them cans. Are ye of the same mind, PC Morrissey?”
PC Morrissey bobbed her head like a dog giving its balls a spring cleaning with the tongue.
“So where did ye get them cans from?” McLaughlin asked.
Rule number one in the Moorside was never grass anyone up to the Filth, never ever. Ever. Fionnuala opened her mouth and wailed: “Down the Mountains of Mourne Gate market, from a lad with hollow eyes and shaky hands. He’s the stall next to the one with the dog collars. Late-twenties, just under six foot, blue eyes, sandy blonde hair parted on the left, a wee scar just under his left nostril, wears plaid shirts and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans. Size thirty waist. Does I be free to go?”
“Ye’re free to go, aye.”
“About bloody time, hi!”
“Ye’re released on yer own recognizance. Mind ye don’t try another wee trip to Liverpool, but.”
“Why?”
“We need ye to identify yer man from the market. And let’s just say ye still be’s a person of interest.”
This made Fionnuala feel important. She adjusted her brown flip and smiled.
“And what about me video?” she demanded.
“The video be’s in the evidence locker with all yer other gear. We’ll have wer technological forensics team look into them...startling...allegations of yers. However unlikely they seems. If nothing comes of it, we’ll hand it back to ye.”
Fionnuala got up to go, but turned to them. “I wonder if one of youse might tell me. Didn’t she die in Paris?”
“Still this babbling about Princess Di!” McLaughlin’s eyes were weary of staring. This woman and her delusion: it was like a pitbull with its jaws locked around an infant. “Aye, she died in Paris. But—”
“Why, then, does themmuns be speaking English in the video? Surely themmuns would be speaking French? It was me mammy that brought it up, and I’ve been worrying over it ever since.”
McLaughlin opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“Sir, if I may,” PC Morrissey came to his rescue. “I’ve read up on it. If you must know, Mrs. Flood, the family had her body shipped to London a few days after the French autopsy was done. There was another autopsy at the Hammersmith and Fulham Mortuary. They didn’t trust the French results. And who could blame them?”
Fionnuala brimmed with excitement. So it was the real thing!
“Ye’ve been wile informative. Ta, like. And what about me family members?” she asked, hoping the police would keep them overnight so she’d have the house to herself for once.
“Them has already been released. Useless, they was.”
“Och, I could’ve told ye that, sure, and saved ye loads of taxpayers’ money.”
As Fionnuala walked down the hall, and McLaughlin and PC Morrissey exchanged a look in silence that said many things, there was a banging on the door. A head poked in.
“Sir, we’ve received an anonymous tip-off that a new terrorist group is planning to detonate a bomb somewhere in the city center the day after tomorrow.”
McLaughlin and Morrissey stared.
“I wonder,” McLaughlin said, “If this be’s the same terrorist cell that left that cache of weapons we recovered from the Pence-A-Day lockup last week.”
“I thought, sir,” Morrissey said, “they had made a run for it. The door to the lock up was wide open, after all. As if they were consumed with guilt over the horriblel activities they were planning and wanted their arms to be confiscated.”
“How credible is the threat?” McLaughlin asked the PC who had told them the news.
“Credible, sir. They didn’t give a location, but. Might I suggest they will target the Top-Yer-Trolley’s annual sale? That seems most likely, given the day chosen.”
“Hmm, well, we don’t really know.”
“Should the public be warned, sir?”
“Are ye mad, boyo? There’d be city-wide panic, so there would! Naw, I’ve got the situation under control. We’ll have groups combing the area, and bomb-sniffing dogs and whatnot in place. And hopefully themmuns will call again and give us more info.”
CHAPTER 69
“I’M WILE HAPPY YE MADE it in time,” Grainne said backstage to Siofra, and Catherine bobbed her head at her side. “We’ve been thinking, but.”
“Out with it!” Siofra said.
“How is we meant to win the contest and become mates with Hannah Montana when we’re to cause such destruction?”
“Och, I’ve that all planned out. It’s wile easy. We’ll say I hadn’t a clue me brother was above us. What wee girls knows what their older brothers be’s up to, sure?”
Catherine was an only child, so she was no authority.
‘Fresh’ from the holding cell, Siofra took command, adjusting the jellyfish and pipe-cleaner seahorses of the Happiness Boat they were about to roll onto the stage the moment the twenty-fourth girl wrapped up the Irish Dancing segment. But now worry creased her brow.
Siofra was so hell-bent on revenge, she hadn’t paused to consider the fact that humiliating Pink Petals might make them lose. It was too late now. She had already sent Padraig up the catwalk that held the lights over the stage, and he had the instructions he was only too delighted to follow, and the motherload. It had been heavy to carry, and he had trouble hauling it up the ladder, but Siofra glanced up and saw him shoving his body across the catwalk. He gav
e her a wave with his free hand, and she could see the menace and delight beaming behind his urine-colored specs even at this distance.
Miss McClurkin hurried up to them, clipboard clamped to her chest, as the lackluster applause beyond the curtains petered out. She twittered down at them with unbridled excitement.
“The audience was bored senseless with all of them,” she whispered, nodding slyly at the twenty-three girls sweating in a field of velvet, green sashes and black tights against the pulleys and boxes of the backstage. She grappled all six of their hands in hers. “You girls are the only chance we have of beating How Great Thou Art, especially after that croissant cooking lesson in French. We’ve kept you specially for last. Give it your all, girls, and the fingers of the Foyle will not only reach out for each other, they will touch! Do it for the future of the city, where Catholics and Protestants can live in harmony. Do it for a united, happy Ireland!”
“Aye, Miss,” they chorused.
“Oh, this will be historic!”Miss McClurkin bubbled. “Give me a few minutes to clear the last girl off the stage and to introduce you.”
She hurried back onstage, microphone in her hand, and Siofra, Grainne and Catherine rolled the Happiness Boat towards the stage.
“What hell hath Riverdance wrought?” Mr. Skivvins was murmuring to Mrs. Pilkey at his side at the table on the end of the stage reserved for the judges. Even Fionnuala in the back row of the auditorium, as proud as she was of Celtic culture, was wishing the coppers had kept her in overnight. She was still wondering about that Proddy girl who had spent five minutes on stage in a peculiar beekeeper-looking hat shoving a skinny sword through the air at nothing that Fionnuala could see. But, she had noticed, Zoë Riddell had wriggled her way onto the panel of judges. And that Mr. Skivvins as well, and the headmistress of How Great Thou Art. There were three Protestant judges versus the Catholic madwoman Concepta McLaughlin and Mrs. Pokey or Plinkey or whatever her name was. Typical. The contest was rigged. Her little girl would never win. Mrs. McLaughlin looked like she didn’t know what timezone on Earth she was in, and the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow headmistress looked like she might convert to Protestantism for a feel of Mr. Skivvins’ manpole. Fionnuala wanted to spew.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 63