Gun Street Girl

by Adrian McKinty

  I said as much to him over another pint of Guinness and a double whiskey chaser.

  “Well, if they have, in fact, been stolen, they’ve been stolen by Loyalist paramilitaries. Shorts is in hard-core Loyalist territory in East Belfast,” Spencer said.

  “And the Loyalists won’t sell them to the IRA?”

  “No chance. If the IRA took down an army helicopter with a missile they got from the Loyalists there would be holy hell to pay. A bloody internal Loyalist feud to say the least. And the Loyalists can’t use them against a Republican target cos even they know it would be disproportionate force and would set off a war with the IRA. Despite all the killings there’s an uneasy truce between the IRA and the Loyalist paramilitaries. As you probably know only too well, Inspector, Belfast is divided up between IRA and Loyalist zones of control for the dis­tribution of drugs and for so-called protection rackets,” McCreen said.

  “So what can they do with the missiles?” McCrabban asked. “Sounds like it’s a bloody stupid thing to steal. High risk. Low reward.”

  Spencer finished his whiskey and asked the barman to bring us another round. Lawson was looking green so I put him on shandy Bass.

  Spencer lowered his voice to a gravelly burr. “See, just between us, we’ve got some intelligence that international buyers have been looking to get their hands on Javelin missile technology.”

  “What international buyers?”

  “Well, it’s only speculation but as you may be aware the South African government is in the midst of a struggle against Cuban forces in Angola . . .”

  “Cubans? Angola? What?”

  “The details aren’t important. The upshot is that the South African government may be looking to acquire foreign weapons systems so that they can reverse-engineer them. We’ve also heard rumors about the Iranians and the Libyans too,” Spencer said. “If indeed the missiles really did get nicked and this whole thing isn’t the usual Northern Ireland bullshit.”

  “Who was that bloke Vardon was blaming? Moony?”

  “Tommy Moony? He mentioned him?” Spencer asked, becoming a little more interested.

  “He said that everyone blamed him and was questioning him but nobody was blaming Tommy Moony. Tommy Moony didn’t get the sack.”

  Spencer looked at McCreen. McCreen shrugged so Spencer continued.

  “Moony’s definitely one of our suspects. He’s a player, or at least he was in the seventies. Ulster Freedom Fighters, we think. Rare birds, whole family immigrated here from Birmingham in the sixties to work in the yards. But they certainly bought into the local culture. His brother, Davy, is doing twenty to life for murder. His uncle, Jack Moony, is a UFF commander in South Belfast. Tommy’s never been so much as arrested for anything but got a rep as a killer in the late seventies. An iceman, the guy you went to for big hits, not random sectarian bullshit.”

  “Sounds interesting,” I said. “Michael Kelly’s parents were probably murdered by a pro.”

  “He’s retired from all that now, though, it seems. He’s a shop steward at Shorts. Big guy in the Shorts Transport Workers’ Union. That’s enough power for anyone. In theory nothing goes in and out of the Shorts factory without either him or his men knowing about it.”

  “So why didn’t he get fired in the internal review?” Crabbie asked.

  “You fire Moony and the whole plant goes out on strike. Production stops, orders are missed, Shorts loses millions of pounds a week and pretty soon Thatcher says fuck the lot of them—like she did to the miners—withdraws the government contracts and the place goes out of business,” Spencer said, sipping his beer and beginning to look as green as Lawson—bit of a lightweight, this one, I thought, filing away the info for later use.

  “Six thousand men out of work, just like that!” McCreen added, and clicked his fingers. “Belfast’s last major employer gone forever.”

  “So you see, Inspector, they can sack our boy Vardon, but no one’s going to fuck with the Transport Workers’ Union or the UFF or Tommy Moony,” Spencer said.

  “It sounds like Moony could be the one who pulled all this off,” I thought out loud. “Management guys aren’t going to be hauling missiles out of boxes and shipping them through the gate. That’s hands-on stuff. You’ll need the blue-collar workers for that.”

  “Don’t worry, Inspector, we’re on top of this. We’ve got our eye on the key players. If either Moony or Vardon is involved in any of this, we’ll find out, eventually,” McCreen said.

  “We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence on the Michael Kelly murders if we didn’t at least interview this Moony character, if only to eliminate Vardon and him from our inquiry. If that’s OK?” I said. I gave him a friendly smile and not only got another round in but four packets of Tayto cheese and onion crisps.

  When I got back with the drinks and the crisps, McCreen nodded. “I’ll let you do that, Duffy, but we’ll have to go with you. This is a Special Branch case.”

  “That’s OK with me. Crabbie?” I asked, remembering that technically he was still lead detective.

  “Fine with me, Sean.”

  “When do you want to go?” McCreen asked.

  “No time like the present.”

  “Fuck it, aye, let’s go!” McCreen said.

  We signed out a Land Rover and drove to the massive, sprawling Short Brothers plant over the river in East Belfast.

  In through the factory gates, past an impressive display of parked aircraft including an enormous WW2-era Shorts Sunderland flying boat.

  McCreen drove us straight to the Transport Union headquarters, which was a green Portakabin next to one of the aircraft hangars. McCreen and Spencer led us past a secretary straight into Moony’s cramped little office. They entered without knocking or being announced, which, I supposed, was how you did things in Special Branch, but something you couldn’t get away with in the regular RUC.

  Moony was behind a desk stacked with paperwork and books. The office had one little dirty window that barely let in any light, and on the plywood Portakabin walls there was a Short Brothers calendar, a Harland and Wolff calendar, and a big red Union flag.

  Moony was on the phone when we came in. He had a Brummie accent that had been softened a little by Ulster.

  “Hard hats are compulsory everywhere on the worksite, if they ask you to take them off that is a breach of . . . oh shit, it’s the fuzz.”

  He slammed down the phone and stood up. He was a tall, skinny, lupine character with a shaved head and deep-set, brown eyes. He was wearing a grey boilersuit that accentuated his leanness. He had big, hairy hands with a fading UFF tattoo on three fingers of his right hand. He had indeed been a player at some point . . .

  Both Moony and Vardon looked a little bit like Deirdre’s artists-impression pic but only a little. Moony was older than the man in the pic and Nigel had softer features.

  He stared at McCrabban, Lawson, and myself, and then at McCreen and Spencer.

  “This is harassment. That’s what this is. Police harassment. You were warned, Inspector McCreen. You’ll be hearing from my solicitor this afternoon!” he said.

  “This isn’t harassment. I’m not here to ask you any questions, Tommy. I was just showing Inspector Duffy where your office is. He’s conducting an entirely separate investigation. A murder inquiry. I won’t be asking you anything today. So you can tell that to your solicitor,” McCreen said.

  “I will, don’t worry,” Moony said, and turned his attention to me. “Now what do you want?”

  “I’m Inspector Sean Duffy from Carrick RUC. We’re conducting a murder investigation into the deaths of Michael Kelly, his parents, and his girlfriend Sylvie McNichol.”

  He nodded. “I read about that. Some bloke kills his mum and dad and jumps off a cliff . . . Don’t know the woman. Never heard of her,” Moony said.

  I explained the circumstances surrounding Sylvie’s death.

  Moony nodded impatiently. “Any road, all very interesting, I’m sure, but what’s this got to d
o with me?”

  “Did you ever meet Michael Kelly?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you ever meet Sylvie McNichol or Michael’s parents?”

  “I doubt it. Never been to Whitehead in my life and I’ve been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, so I wouldn’t go into any of those Kelly’s Bookie Shops either.”

  “But you do know Nigel Vardon.”

  “Of course.”

  “What was your relationship to him?”

  “He was a manager here but they got rid of him after the whole missing missile bollocks. What’s he got to do with anything?”

  “Nigel was one of Michael’s good friends. We think Michael was becoming a bit of a mover and shaker in the arms dealing business,” I explained.

  Moony nodded. “Oh, I get it. Vardon steals the missiles, Michael is the conduit for some sort of international arms deal. It goes wrong and Vardon kills Michael. Is that it?”

  “Well, that’s one possibility,” I admitted.

  “Have you met that Vardon guy? That plonker’s not killing anyone. Why do you think he has them dogs? He’s frightened of his own shadow. Him a killer? No chance.”

  “How do you know about his dogs?” I asked.

  “Pictures of them in his office.”

  “So you were in his office, then.”

  “Of course I was. And he was in mine. That’s how a factory works. Ever had a real job, Inspector?” Moony said, rolling his eyes. “And besides, your whole theory rests on the fact that somebody did indeed steal a bunch of missiles from under our noses, which I can assure you, Inspector Duffy, they did not.”

  “How do you know? If the inventory is as messed up as everyone says—”

  “As I have very patiently been trying to explain to Chief Inspector McCreen here, nothing goes in or out of this plant without me or the union knowing about it. I don’t care what the inventory says or doesn’t say; if none of our boys moved it, it didn’t leave here. And none of our boys moved any missile systems out of here without a work order. If there’s one thing I school into my men it’s never do anything without a work order. If you’re injured on the job, we go straight to the work order to see who the foreman was, who the manager was, how many men were supposed to be on the job, who the safety inspector was . . . But if they do a job without a work order it’s chaos. No, no, no. No work order, no job. And there was no work order for those missiles. Ergo, Inspector, they’re still here. Somewhere.”

  “Nothing can move in and out of here without you knowing about it?” I reiterated.

  “That’s right.”

  “What about at night? After dark, after the plant’s closed.”

  He shook his head. “Dubious. You’d have to know exactly where the crates were, you’d have to somehow ship them out without the proper equipment, past half a dozen different security guards into the middle of Belfast. Without any alarms getting tripped or anyone ever seeing it. No way.”

  “So if they didn’t steal the missiles at night, they would have had to do it during the day and you’re saying that’s impossible because your men weren’t involved.”

  “No such work order was issued. Simple as that.”

  “So how do you explain this whole scandal, then?” I asked.

  “Management screw-up.”

  “That’s all there is to it?”

  “Yes. Everybody on the shop floor here goes through a six-year apprenticeship scheme. One of the longest in the world. But the managers? Those blooming idiots? They just hire them right out of university. They don’t know anything. Yampy cobs, the lot of them. My men have to teach them on the job.”

  “So you don’t think this is serious?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s serious all right! Thatcher is just looking for an opportunity to close us down. Save a few million from the Treasury purse and turf thousands of men on the dole. Butcher us like they did with Harland and Wolff and what they’re doing on the Clyde. Ever been to Germany?”

  “No, I can’t say that—”

  “The Germans support their shipyards and heavy industry. They’ve got the right idea. When all the British yards will have closed the only people left in the world to build warships and cruise ships and tankers will be the Germans and the South Koreans. We can’t all be bloody stockbrokers, can we! This country has to make things, you know? We can’t all be on the government shilling like you, Inspector Duffy, and you, Chief Inspector McCreen. Oh, it’s serious all right, Inspector Duffy. If Shorts goes that’s it for Belfast. First Harland and Wolff, and then DeLorean, and us too? The city will be finished!”

  “You’re not suggesting a conspiracy, are you, Mr. Moony?”

  He smiled. “Nah, not a conspiracy, just a common or garden management screw-up.”

  “Tell me about your brother and your uncle, Mr. Moony,” I said, changing tack.

  His eyes darkened. “What about them?”

  “Players. Your brother’s doing twenty years. Your uncle is a UFF commander.”

  He nodded and looked at McCreen. “Special Branch tell you that, did they?”

  “It’s common knowledge,” I said.

  “Well, that’s them and they’re family and I love them. But it’s not me. Look up my charge sheet. Clean.”

  “It’s also common knowledge you were a UFF iceman in the seventies. One of the best, every—”

  Moony was on his feet. “That’s enough!” he said angrily. “What you’re saying is slander. Slander on my reputation. Guilt by association. I never did anything like that.”

  “Your knuckles tell a different story,” I said.

  He ran his hand over his bald head.

  “When I was a very young man, innocent Protestants were being murdered every day by the IRA and the police were doing nothing to stop it. I did join the UDA and the UFF to protect our streets—1968, inspector, a long, long time ago. We’d just moved here as a family. I didn’t know any better. I am a very different man now. I have been born again in the Blood of Christ, Inspector Duffy. I was saved by the Reverend Graham in person, Villa Park, Birmingham, July 7, 1984. I’m a family man. I have two boys and a girl. I know Jonty is doing life for murder. And Toby, well, I’m not going to talk about him in front of police officers, but Toby has, shall we say, chosen the path of violence. But that’s not me.”

  It was a convincing speech. In fact the whole spiel was convincing. When he got breathy and worked up he sounded like Enoch Powell, another lad from the Midlands whose strange stars had taken him to darkest Ulster.

  I looked at Lawson and Crabbie to see whether they had anything.

  Crabbie asked him about the timeline and Moony claimed to have an alibi for the night of the Kelly murders, for Sylvie’s death, and for the night Michael went off the cliff. He was at home with his family. They would all vouch for him. Wife, four kids.

  “So the first murder would have been on the night of November 11, 1985,” I reiterated.

  “Home watching the box. The eleventh of the eleventh . . . always a good war film on the TV.”

  “Remember the film?”

  “The Great Escape.”

  “And the evening of November twelfth?”

  “Work and then home with the family. I don’t go out much. Not on a weeknight. Call up the missus and ask her.”

  “And November nineteenth?”

  “Same deal.”

  We thanked Mr. Moony for his time and drove back to Carrick RUC.

  I looked in the Moony family RUC files and I did a quick newspaper index search on whether Billy Graham had indeed come to England in 1984. He had. Everything Moony said checked out. We called up his wife to check on the alibi, and as we suspected she backed her husband all the way.

  All five of us went down to Ownies Bar, where the food was good and the black stuff was the best in County Antrim.

  “What did you think of Moony?” Spencer asked me over my second pint.

  “I thought he was sincere,” I said.

  Spencer and McCreen
laughed bitterly. “He’s got you fooled as well, then, I see,” McCreen said. “Special Branch intel says he’s a player. Big-time player.”

  “But he found God,” Crabbie said. “The Reverend Billy Graham himself. At Villa Park. I looked it up. Cliff Richard sang that day.”

  “Is this the same Reverend Graham who told President Nixon he was doing the Lord’s work when he bombed the shit out of the Chinks?” Spencer said.

  “I think you mean the Vietnamese,” Lawson said.

  “Chinks, Slopes, what’s the difference? Point is, I don’t believe this phony God number, and I don’t believe his bullshit about the work orders, or that he’s clear of the UFF.”

  Spencer looked at McCreen and some secret communication seemed to pass between them.

  “I mean, maybe there are no stolen missiles,” Spencer continued. “But if there are he’s in on the scheme up to his fucking neck.”

  “So you’ve Moony under tight surveillance too?” I asked.

  “We might have,” McCreen said cagily.

  “I’m asking because you might be able to verify the alibis of both Vardon and Moony.”

  McCreen shook his head. “We can’t do that. We only got approval for a full-time surveillance operation seventy-two hours ago. Bureaucracy/limited resources, you know how it works.”

  “But let us assure you, Inspector Duffy, if either Vardon or Moony make a move in the next couple of weeks, we’ll know about it and you’ll know about it,” Spencer said.

  “Phone taps?” I asked.

  “We’re not supposed to tell you,” McCreen said. “But I assure you that if either of them mentions anything pertaining to your investigation we will let you know.”

  I smiled. “See, this is what I like. Special Branch and CID working together.”

  McCreen stood up to get the next round in. “Sorry about that Fenian crack earlier, really, no offense meant, you know? I actually heard you were a good peeler.”

  “No offense taken.”

  Another round.

  And another.

  Beers. Whiskey. Ciggies.

  Improvised pub crawl through Carrick in the drizzle. The Dobbins Inn. The Central Bar. The North Gate. The Borough Arms. The Railway Tavern. The latter three sour, vinegary, paramilitary pubs, filled with dour men in denim jackets looking for trouble but knowing they were out of their depth with the five of us.