Gun Street Girl

by Adrian McKinty

“Do you have any idea why someone would have wanted to murder Michael Kelly?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Think about it for a minute or two before you answer.”

  He thought about it and shook his head.

  “Has anyone tried to blackmail you about your involvement in Anastasia Coleman’s death?”

  “To tell you the truth, until you two came along I’d barely thought about it since I started here in September.”

  I looked at Lawson. He gave me a little nod. He was thinking the same thing: Osbourne was a scumbag, but an honest scumbag. Unless we were very much mistaken those chubby, boyish chops were the chubby, boyish chops of verisimilitude.

  “So why do you think someone might have killed Michael Kelly?”

  “I have no idea. I mean, it’s Northern Ireland, isn’t it? People are getting killed over there all the time.”

  “Michael’s death was not a random act of violence. We believe it was a very deliberate murder concealed to look like a suicide.”

  Osbourne shook his head, horrified.

  “Are you sure he wasn’t blackmailing you about Miss Coleman?”

  “Michael wouldn’t do anything like that. Michael could have left that morning but he didn’t. He stayed to help Gottfried. That was the kind of guy he was. How do you think he got into the Round Table Club? Those are old-money clubs and Michael was Irish and new money, but people liked him. And then there was the whole gun thing. Everybody loved that. He was charming and—”

  “Sorry, what gun thing?” I asked.

  “The AGC. The Antiquarian Gun Club. Michael was president. All the Round Table guys loved it. Everyone in the Dangerous Sports Club too. We all went to the AGC events.”

  Osbourne explained that the AGC liked to shoot old shotguns, muskets, arquebuses and the like. They were enthusiasts, collectors; some of them were also re-enactors of ancient battles.

  “Michael even got us permits to fire old cannons on Christchurch Meadow. Apparently there’s an old university law that allows you to do that. We did it on May morning! That shook everyone up!”

  “So, in fact, you knew Michael quite well?” Lawson asked.

  Osbourne nodded sadly. “He was a good chap.”

  “Tell us more about the guns,” I said, intrigued by this turn in the inquiry.

  “He really knew his weapons. He had a great eye for a gun. The AGC was dying until he took it over. He became a very active club president and treasurer.”

  “Any financial irregularities?”

  “Quite the reverse, actually. The best treasurer they ever had. It became one of the wealthiest non-dining clubs in Oxford. Under Michael’s stewardship it had become the club to be in. Some clubs just become the club and that’s what happened to the AGC. It had always been the club for people wanting to go into the MoD, British Aerospace, and so forth, but under Michael it became positively trendy. In the end he had to start turning people down for membership.”

  Lawson and I were scribbling furiously now. Oxford CID had discovered none of this. But was it relevant?

  “So how would it work? You would all just meet up and fire old guns?”

  “And new guns too. So exciting. Pistols, rifles. I suppose in Northern Ireland you’re around guns all the time?”

  “You don’t remember if Michael was a good shot, do you?” I asked.

  “Yes, he was actually. An excellent shot. Some of us thought he could have competed at club or even international level.”

  “And this was modern weaponry as well?”

  “Oh yes. Michael’s friend Nigel got us access to the government range at Dartmoor. That was a trip we’ll never forget. Machine guns, grenade launchers. Boris even got to shoot a Blowpipe missile!”

  “Who was this Nigel?”

  “Oh, a lad from Belfast. An old friend of Michael’s.”

  “An old friend of Michael’s from Belfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Second name?”

  “I didn’t catch it actually. Really.”

  “And he got you access to the government range at Dartmoor?”

  “Yes. Nigel was connected to some factory in Belfast that made missiles. They always needed the range for testing.”

  “Short Brothers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lawson looked at me. Yes, this was a very interesting development indeed. I wrote “Nigel . . .” in my notebook. Old school friend called Nigel, possibly connected to Shorts, had once used his pull to get access to the MoD range at Dartmoor—shouldn’t be that hard to find out a surname with a little old-fashioned legwork.

  “This all must have cost a fortune?” I suggested.

  “Michael made the AGC a very profitable enterprise.”

  “Through membership fees?” Lawson asked.

  “Not just that. Like I say, he had a great eye for a gun. He would go to auctions and estate sales. Always came back with a bargain or two. He found an old Ottoman matchlock for my father. Pride of place in our living room.”

  “He bought guns for the club?”

  “And for the collectors.”

  “Would he sell guns as well?”

  “Of course, yes. It was all perfectly legal, Inspector. There was no suggestion of wrongdoing.”

  “But it wouldn’t be unfair to say that by the time he, er, left Oxford he was well established in the network of gun dealers and buyers?”

  “Well, yes.”

  We asked him a few more questions about the gun club and his relationship with Michael and the mysterious Nigel: a tall, thin man with long blond hair and a Belfast accent.

  I asked Osbourne to give us the room for a minute so Lawson and I could talk privately.

  “Just wait outside the door, sir. We’ll let you know when we need you again.”

  He exited nervously.

  “Thoughts?” I asked Lawson.

  “Arms dealing. Quite the growth industry. Legal and illegal, especially in Ulster. Maybe he made some enemies? And we’ll definitely have to find this Nigel guy.”

  “What else jumped out at you?”

  Lawson looked at his notes. “Michael, apparently, was an excellent shot.”

  “So he could have murdered his parents after all. Fast, like a pro.”

  We called Osbourne back in.

  “Mr. Osbourne, where were you on the night of November 11, 1985?”

  “Uhm . . .”

  “Working late here at the office with lots of witnesses?” I suggested.

  “Uhm, well, actually we had the week off. Post-conference lull, you know? We all worked really hard for the conferences. I mean after last year. You remember what happened last year?”

  I remember it only too well, son. I was fucking there.

  “So what were you doing if you weren’t working?”

  “Oh, you know, just hanging out at the flat. At the weekend I went home, saw a whole bunch of friends.”

  “By the weekend Michael Kelly and his parents were dead.”

  “Look, I’ve never been to Northern Ireland in my life. I don’t think I even have a current passport!”

  “You don’t need a passport,” I said.

  I got to my feet.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Osbourne. And if I were you I’d try and think of an alibi for the night of the eleventh.”

  A smile creased his chubby cheeks. “So that’s it for now?” he asked hopefully.

  “For the moment that’s it. We’re going back to Northern Ireland tonight, Mr. Osbourne.”

  “And, and what about . . . what about my name? It won’t get in the papers?”

  “We have no interest in releasing your name to the press, Mr. Osbourne, and it seems that Thames Valley Police and Gottfried Habsburg are of like mind. Today is your lucky day in what seems to have been a life filled with lucky days.”

  “Well, it’s not quite all—”

  “We may want to interview you again, sir, so please don’t leave the country and please gi
ve Constable Lawson here your address and home phone number.”

  “And that alibi would be very helpful if you can come up with one, sir,” Lawson said, giving him the Carrickfergus CID phone number.

  17: INTERROGATING DEIRDRE FERRIS

  We asked the receptionist at Conservative Central Office to call us a taxi which we took to Paddington, where we caught the Oxford train. There was no point staying in England now.

  When we pulled into Oxford station I told Lawson to pack our stuff, pay the bill, get a receipt, get two bus tickets to Birmingham International airport, and meet me at the Eagle and Child.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Don’t forget the receipt. Sergeant Dalglish is a stickler for receipts.”

  “I won’t. Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t suspect Osbourne, do you?”

  “No. But you never know, do you? We’ll make sure we call him and follow up with him on that alibi.”

  “Yes, sir. Uhm, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you going to do while I’m packing?”

  “I’m going to go back to Oxford CID and raise just a little bit of holy hell.”

  Back through the streets of Oxford again.

  The same girls on bikes, the same boys rowing on the river, the same red sandstone . . . but a more sinister aspect to it all now. The Round Table Club. The AGC. This is where the elite cemented their connections, this is where deals got done, this is where you got inducted into the secret world of men with money and power. Through the looking glass indeed.

  Oxford Police HQ. Piped music. Natural light. Georgian windows uncovered by grilles. Flowers on the incident desk. This was a station without armor, a station that anyone could just walk right into. The same thought: these bloody peelers didn’t know how lucky they were.

  What did they know about policing in a crisis zone? What did they know about fucking anything?

  I went upstairs to the CID offices.

  The big back room overlooking Christchurch Meadow.

  The big back room overlooking one of the most beautiful places in all of Europe. Yellow wood, aurulent leaves, Jersey cows . . .

  The CID officers were gawping at me.

  I asked for a meeting with Superintendent Smith, Chief Inspector Boyson, Constable Atkins. I played it low key, dropped my voice half an octave and got it low and growly like those slab-faced goons who come to your door late on foggy December nights asking whether you want to “contribute something for the prisoners.”

  I told them what Habsburg had told me. Let it sink in. Let it bloody sink.

  They had committed serious professional wrongdoing and they bloody knew it. I could end their careers if I wanted to. Even if that would entail grassing up a fellow peeler.

  White faces. Panic. Yeah, that’s right, you underestimated the Paddy cop. Either that or you overestimated Gottfried Habsburg’s ability to keep his mouth shut. Either way: serious fucking mistake. Career-ending mistake. Front page of the fucking Daily Mirror mistake.

  “You don’t understand, Duffy. There was nothing in it for us; we just wanted to protect an innocent young man. It was nothing untoward. No one told us to do it or paid us or—”

  “If that’s true you’re even stupider than you look.”

  “Please, Inspector Duffy, you can see our side of it, can’t you?”

  “Falsifying reports. Concealing information from the Crown Prosecution Service? Concealing information from a county coroner? That’s not just your career, lads, that’s jail time . . .”

  “No, Duffy, wait a minute—”

  “That’s Inspector Duffy to you.”

  But I had already begun to lose interest. Busting chops was never my scene. And I wasn’t going to do anything anyway. Just fuck with them. Leave the possibility of action hanging over them . . . That was the ticket. That was the way of ulcers.

  “I’m going,” I said.

  “No! Wait, Duffy! What are you going to do?”

  They followed me downstairs.

  Out into the street.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Do I look like a bloody informer?”

  I walked up St Aldate’s, up the Cornmarket, up St Giles’.

  Good-bye, English girls on bikes. Good-bye, Christopher Wren. Good-bye, Morse World.

  Lawson had packed our stuff and was waiting for me at the Eagle and Child.

  There was a bus to Birmingham International leaving Oxford coach station in half an hour.

  Airport.

  British Midland 737.

  Belfast.

  Crabbie met us at the gate.

  “You didn’t have to meet us at the airport!” I said.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” he lied. “How was the trip?”

  “It wasn’t a total loss. Turns out our Michael Kelly was starting to become a big-time gun dealer. Networking, meeting people. And we got a name: Nigel something, possible connection to Shorts Brothers in Belfast. Oh, and Lawson was right about the conspiracy.”

  “A conspiracy?”

  “Aye, a conspiracy of fools to protect an idiot.”

  “They always are.”

  Crabbie drove me back to 113 Coronation Road.

  Boys playing football. Girls pushing prams. Neighbors chatting over fences. Why is it so comforting here? I’ll tell you why: poverty and a rumbling, low-level war have engendered a blitz spirit.

  Vodka gimlet. Converse sneakers. Sweatpants. Ramones T-shirt. Put in a cassette I bought at the airport. The Z and Two Noughts soundtrack album by Michael Nyman. Bit samey. Not up to his usual standard.

  At nine I called Sara but her phone just rang and rang.

  I called her at the Telegraph offices.

  “What is it, Sean?”

  She sounded irritated. I asked her whether she wanted to do something after work. She said she couldn’t. There’d been rioting in Belfast and the photo editor wanted to build a big story around an arc of petrol bombs sailing through the air . . .

  I called my parents and told them I’d been over the water on a case. They showed polite and rather touching interest. I made another vodka gimlet. Easy on the lime.

  Phone call. The Crabman. “Deirdre’s been transferred down from Queen Street cop shop. We can interrogate her now if you want. Or tomorrow if you want to settle in.”

  “I’ll be right over. Get Lawson in for this one too. I think it’s going to be good.”

  The tape recorder running in Interview Room 2, Deirdre Ferris sitting there in white stilettos, leopard-print top, and a red miniskirt. She was sipping a tea with four sugars and smoking Embassy Kings.

  Did I describe Deirdre before? You know the type: fake tan, dyed, straightened black hair, green eyes, chubby, pretty. There was a bruise under her right eye but you should see the other girl . . .

  “So you’re the one that can get me off my assault charge?” she said, blowing smoke at me.

  “Only if you’ve got something pertinent to offer us,” I replied.

  “Pertinent. Pertinent, eh? That’s a good word, that pertinent.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “I might have seen somebody pertinent to the case.”

  “Who?”

  “What do I get in return?”

  “It depends who you saw.”

  “What if I seen someone going up our garden path the night Sylvie died.”

  I looked at McCrabban and Lawson.

  “Tell us what you saw, Deirdre,” I said.

  Deirdre shook her head. “If I tell you’ll have to guarantee me no charges from them peelers at Queen Street station. They’re not nice up there. Not nice like youse down here.”

  “If you can give us Sylvie’s murderer I’ll get you off the GBH.”

  She shook her head, puffed on her ciggie. “Nah, nah, nah, I’ll tell you what I seen and then it’s your job to get the fucking murderer. I get off the GBH in return for what I seen, even if you don’t catch the ki
ller.”

  “All right, that’s the deal, then,” I said. “I’ll get them to drop the assault charge in return for what you saw.”

  “And if I’m going to be blabbing to the cops about a bloody maniac who goes round topping barmaids I’ll need to be somewhere safe, so I will.”

  “You’re safe in here.”

  “I’m not spending the next six months in fucking jail while you look for the lad who might have done Sylvie in.”

  I sighed. “So what do you want, Deirdre?”

  “Charges dropped for that wee bitch Angela McCorey who fucking had it coming if anyone ever had it coming. And then outta here. One of them safe houses. Well away. Over the water.”

  “I think we could do that,” McCrabban said. “We have a reciprocal arrangement with Strathclyde Police.”

  Deirdre nodded. “Aye, Scotland would be all right. Like it over there.”

  “So what did you see, Deirdre?” I said, starting to lose my patience.

  She stubbed out her fag, took a drink of water. “So anyway, the night Sylvie supposedly topped herself I was away to see me ma. Wee drink at the Whitecliff and then train to Carrick, you know? Anyways, I left the house and I was walking down the street but then I realized I’d forgotten the twenty quid I owed Darren for the acid tabs, right? Wait, you’re not Drugs Squad, are you?”

  “We’re not interested in the acid tabs. Carry on, Deirdre,” I said.

  “Now Darren’s UVF and if you don’t pay when you owe it’s double the next week, so I was going back to borrow the money off Sylvie, but then I seen someone outside our house, you know? Oh, thinks I, a gentleman caller. I knew better than to bother her. You know? All cut up after Michael’s death and all. Wee bit of comfort, and anyway, Darren’ll take a hand job in lieu so to speak. See what I mean?”

  “So you think that someone was outside your house that night and you think that they were going to see Sylvie?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did you actually see this person go to your front door?”

  “No, I’m not a nosy parker, so I’m not, and the rain was on so I just turned and went on to the Whitecliff.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t someone just out walking their dog—dog stops in front of your place to take a piss?” I asked.

  “There was no dog. Let me think . . . no, if there was a dog it was a wee small dog . . . No, there was definitely no dog. He was going to see Sylvie, I know it.”