“Of course it was! Do youse think they’d have had the nerve to touch us with Dermot still out!” Mrs. McCann said, coming back with the tea and coconut buns she had clearly made herself. They looked on the ancient side but it would be impolite not to take one.
“How did you end up in the peelers?“ Fiona asked.
“I suppose there just wasn’t enough excitement in my life.”
“I’m surprised you’re still alive. They’ve got a bounty on Catholic peelers, don’t they?”
“They do indeed.”
I took a bite of the coconut nasty. All I could taste was baking soda and treacle. I swallowed some tea to get it down. That too was vile. Maybe the pair of them were trying to earn that bounty right now.
“So does Orla live here too?” I enquired.
“Is that what it said in your wee intelligence reports?” Fiona asked with a cackle.
I nodded. “That’s exactly what it said. It said that the three of you were sharing this place.”
“She’s moved out,” Mrs. McCann said, sighing.
“Don’t tell him where, Ma, it would be collaboration!” Fiona hissed.
“I’ll tell him! I’ll tell anybody that wants to know. Orla’s mitched off with Poppy Devlin, so she has. One of his wee Shanty hoors now! High as a kite, so she is. We are scundered! Can’t put our heads out the door for the shame of it!”
I was shocked, and there was a leaden silence while I digested this information. Dermot McCann’s sister was whoring for some drug-dealing pimp called Poppy Devlin? Did Dermot have no currency left at all in this town?
Christ Almighty.
Maybe Dermot didn’t care what his family was up to, or maybe the old IRA operators were all being driven out by a new generation of drug dealers flush with cash who weren’t interested in politics or “the struggle.”
“Who is this Poppy Devlin?” I asked.
“What are you doing here anyway?” Fiona asked.
I showed her my warrant card. “I’m RUC Special Branch. I’m looking for Dermot. I’d like him to turn himself in.”
Fiona laughed without any sign of mirth. “You’re a good one, you are, Sean Duffy.”
“I’d like him to turn himself in before the Brits find him and top him.”
“The Brits will never find him, so they won’t!” Mrs. McCann said.
“We’ll not tell you where he is, even if we did know, which we don’t. Do you think he’d call us? Do you think he’s that much of an eejit? Have you forgotten who you’re dealing with?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t forgotten, Fiona. But if he does get in touch will you do me a favor and mention what I said? It would be better if he turned himself in. If the SAS find him they’ll kill him. He’s got the Brits terrified.”
Fiona walked across the room and jabbed a finger in my chest. “We’ll be telling him nothing! And we’ll be telling you nothing! He never liked you. He never trusted you. I thought you were all right. But I see that I was mistaken. Now get out of here before I show you the back of my hand!”
I got to my feet.
Kate rose a moment later.
“Thanks for the tea and cake. Delicious as usual, Mrs. McCann,” I said.
The old lady smiled. “You were always a good boy, Sean. Ach, it’s just a shame things went the way they did, isn’t it?” she said dreamily.
“Aye, it is.”
I turned to look Fiona in the face. Her cheeks were red and again there was that weird light in their eyes, indicative of some rogue royal bloodline that had ended up in this ghastly sink estate in the arse-end of nowhere. “I’m fond of Dermot. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him. That’s not a threat. I just don’t want him to give the Brits an excuse to kill him in cold blood. They’re pulling out all the stops looking for him—hence my involvement—and it would be better if he turned himself in. Please pass on the message if he gets in touch.”
This made her furious. “Will you fuck off, copper, or do I have to throw you out meself!” she hissed.
I opened the door, and when Kate came through Fiona spat on the ground at our feet and slammed it shut.
We walked back down the stairs in silence.
“Was that normal? Are you happy with the way that went?” Kate asked as we reached the bottom.
“It went exactly the way I expected it to go. It’s the way it’s going to go with all of Dermot’s family. No one is going to tell us anything.”
“So how are you going to get a lead on him?”
I lit myself a cigarette and offered her one.
She shook her head.
“To be honest, love, I haven’t the foggiest,” I said.
Kate bit her lower lip. “So what is next?”
I drew in the tobacco smoke and let its warmth coat my lungs and clear my head. I rubbed my chin. “Well, there’s his uncle who’s still in the Derry area. We’ll try him next. And then Annie, his ex-wife down in Antrim, living with her ma and da. We’ll try her.”
“And then?”
I shook my head. “The rest of his family is across the water. Didn’t you say they’re all in America and Australia and places like that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a bit beyond our jurisdiction, isn’t it? And his old comrades are either in prison or on the run from prison . . .”
“So, again, my question, what will you do?”
“If no one will talk?”
“If no one will talk.”
“Hope that somebody changes their mind or that Dermot slips up.”
Although she attempted to hide it I could see that she was disappointed in me. She’d put her neck out for me and promised her bosses miracles but I was no miracle worker. I was an average, maybe a below-average, detective in a rather mediocre police force. Nothing more, nothing less. She’d given me another chance, and I appreciated it, but one man could do very little.
We walked out of the building and found the hoodlum king guarding my car against all comers. I gave him the tenner.
“Where would I find a fella called Poppy Devlin?” I asked.
“The offy on Carlisle Gardens. Don’t go to him. He’s pricey. I can sort you out if you’re after some brown, or,” he looked uneasily at Kate, “a wee milly or something?”
“Nah, you’re all right, son.”
We got in the Beemer. It was raining so I put on the wipers. This part of Derry was better behind rain and wipers.
“Where to now?” Kate asked.
“We’ll go see the uncle.”
I made sure that first I drove past the offy on Carlisle Gardens. It was the usual concrete bunker covered in metal grilles and graffiti. Under the overhang there were a couple of goons in Peter Storm coats chatting and chain smoking.
I clocked them and the location and the vibe.
I’d be back.
“Where’s the uncle live?” Kate asked. “You said he lived around here?”
“He’s in Muff. Just over the border in Donegal.”
“Oh God, I suppose we’ll have to go through the Foreign Office to get permission to interview him.”
“Nah. We won’t even have to go through a police checkpoint.”
“What? How’s that possible?”
I drove along the Lenamore Road and took a left down a semi-concealed slip road that I knew. It was a seldom used country lane that went through a now derelict farm. The lane was rutted and flooded but the Beemer handled it with only minimum complaint.
“What is this? Is this a smuggler’s trail or something?” Kate asked, a little bit excited by the prospect.
“Nah, smugglers use better roads than this,” I said.
“What are we going to do if we run into an army checkpoint? I didn’t bring my proper ID and you’ve got a gun. How are we going to explain ourselves?”
“We’ll be fine,” I assured her.
The lane ended abruptly near Derryvane and we were nearly all the way to Muff before Kate realized that we had already crossed
the border and were now in the Irish Republic.
Jonty McCann lived just beyond Muff on the R238 in a newly renovated granite Victorian manse overlooking Lough Foyle. Sheep and cows were all around and the smell of fertilizer was in the air.
I parked outside the white, cast-iron gate and got out. I ditched the leather jacket and got my raincoat from the boot.
“You wanna come in for this one? It’ll be the same story.”
“I’ll come in,” Kate said, still a little nonplussed by the ease of our border crossing. If I knew of a secret unpatrolled road from Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic the terrorists must know hundreds . . .
Jonty’s garden was planted with sweet pea and red and pink roses.
The house looked neat and well maintained.
It said on the bio that Jonty was a builder, but he was also a retired INLA divisional quartermaster who had organized operations that had killed scores of people over the years: police, army, civilians, and the leaders of rival factions, including a couple of top IRA men. In theory there was a truce between the IRA and INLA, but Jonty had to know that someday someone might come looking for revenge.
We knocked on his blue front door.
It was opened by a young woman with brown hair and green eyes who was wearing a Snoopy sweatshirt and green Wellington Boots. I knew I should have been scoping her but it was the sweatshirt I was obsessing about. Snoopy was wearing the shades of his Joe Cool persona that had been fashionable briefly about ten years ago. How had the sweatshirt survived through so many spin cycles?
“Looking for Jonty McCann,” I said after Kate nudged me.
“Yes,” Kate said.
The young woman looked at Kate and was somewhat reassured. She certainly didn’t look like an IRA assassin.
“What for?” the young woman asked.
“Private business,” I said.
“What sort of private business?”
“It’s private, that’s all I can say.”
“He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s fishing.”
“I don’t think this will take too long.”
She examined my face, trying to figure out what I was, exactly. I showed her my warrant card.
“I’m an RUC detective and I have no authority here in Donegal whatsoever. If Jonty doesn’t want to speak to me he can tell me piss off and there’s not a thing I can do about it. But I don’t think he will. This will only take five minutes.”
She nodded. “He would never talk to a policeman.”
“I suppose I could ask him and see?”
“I suppose you could ask. All right . . . He’s fishing down the lane.”
“Where’s that?”
“Go round the side of the house and head down toward the water. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
“Aye, do that.”
I smiled at her and she closed the front door.
She was probably going to call him on a walkie-talkie, or more likely he’d already heard this entire conversation on an open mike. Sending us down here on foot would give him ample time to get his gun out and prep for us.
Sure enough, at the bottom of the brambly lane Jonty was standing there in front of a fishing stool and two rods. He was facing us with his right hand in the pocket of his Barbour jacket.
He looked younger than his fifty years. Thick black hair and bushy beard, no worry lines at all. Clearly he wasn’t being tormented by bad dreams of men who had begged him for their lives. We’d met once before when Dermot had been captain of the school team in the Irish Inter Schools Debating Cup. Of course, we had won the tournament and Dermot had been rightly feted by the school. I’d been on that team too but Dermot was always the star of the hour and I imagine Jonty wouldn’t have remembered me at the victory party at the Londonderry Arms in Carnlough.
I put my hands up and motioned to Kate so that she did the same.
“What do you want, peeler?” Jonty asked with his hand still in his pocket.
“I’m looking for your nephew, Jonty. I’m looking for Dermot,” I said.
“Dermot? Why would I have any idea where he is?” Jonty said.
“And even if you did you wouldn’t tell me.”
“No.”
We stared at one another. My hands up, his right still on the trigger of his gun.
“Has he contacted you at all since he escaped?” I asked.
“I’m not going to tell you anything. You’re just wasting your time here, cop,” Jonty said.
“Did he contact you from Libya at all?” I asked.
“Libya? Where’s that?”
Jonty was a veteran of dozens of interrogations in his time: the RUC, the Irish cops, the British Army, British Intelligence . . .
He could go on like this for hours.
I looked at Kate. This was mostly for her benefit, so that she could report back and tell them that I had at least tried. But I was also curious about Orla.
“If he does get in touch, tell him that Sean Duffy was asking for him,” I said.
Jonty’s eyes narrowed.
“I know you. Working for the Brits because we wouldn’t have you. You’ll take anyone’s shilling, will you? Or is thirty pieces of silver more the asking price?”
I yawned. You’d think they would have come up with more original lines after all this time.
“Do you know a pimp called Poppy Devlin?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Maureen tells me that your niece, Orla, has taken up with this character.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Orla will listen to no one. She goes her own way and what she does is her own business.”
“I remember Orla. Beautiful wee girl and smart with it. Could you not do something about it, Jonty? Everyone’s very upset.”
“Don’t you speak about it! Don’t you speak about anyone in my family! It’s not your concern, copper! We’ve done all we can for Orla! All we can do and more! And I can’t go back to Derry now. It’s impossible! Do you understand? All I can do is use my influence from here.”
“But Jonty, if—”
He pulled out the 9mm and pointed it at us.
“Enough! You’ve made me raise my voice, peeler. You’ve made me scare the fish. I think it’s time you went back over the border to the Six Counties, don’t you?” His voice was shaking with cold menace.
“OK, take it easy, mate. We’ll go,” I said.
I backed up a few paces.
“Go on, then!” he snarled.
Kate and I turned and walked quickly back to the car.
When we got in the Beemer Kate lit one of my fags with a trembling hand.
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“I thought for a moment he was going to shoot us. No one knew we were there. He could have done it and got away with it easily,” she said.
“He could have. But it would have ruined his fishing.”
I got the car going and in ten minutes we were back over the border into Northern Ireland.
“I suppose I’ll take you home, then,” I said.
“I suppose you should,” she agreed.
I drove through Derry and then along the coast.
Kate had no conversation so I put on Radio 3.
She seemed to be digesting the day’s events.
Radio 3 was playing Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass, a piece I had actually seen in New York in the presence of the composer.
I tried to tell Kate about it but she wasn’t interested in the least.
When we got to Coleraine, she told me to pull over. “You’ll want to go home along the A26 and the M2. There’s no point driving out of your way to go to Ballycastle. I’ll get the bus. They’re every twenty minutes.”
“Are you sure? It’s really no trouble.”
“No. Leave me at the bus station and then you go on home, Sean. It’s been a long day.”
“All right, then,” I said.
I drove to the bus station. It was four o’clock now.
“Oh yes. And if I ever miss it there’s a man in a little boat who’ll take you over for a couple of pounds.”
I nodded. “Not the most productive day ever, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But that’s police work. I expect it’s the same in your profession.”
“Why did you keep bringing up Dermot’s sister, Orla?” she asked astutely.
“Well, clearly there’s been some sort of factional fighting in the city. The McCanns have been more or less driven out. Jonty’s living in exile over the border, the rest of the family has emigrated, the mother and Fiona are in some shithole flat, and no one apparently can do anything to help Orla . . .”
“What does all that mean?”
“Dermot used to be a big man in Derry, but the years in prison have allowed other people to rise up in the vacuum. Dermot’s never been fond of the limelight. He likes to move the pieces from behind the scenes, but that’s not the way to intimidate anyone, certainly not people on the ground. He’ll need to prove himself if he wants to become a major player again.”
“How?”
“You know how. Maybe he can turn the family fortunes around with some kind of IRA spectacular. It’ll have to be something big, something very big . . .”
“Like?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened the car door and the rain came pouring in.
“Do you think any of them will help us find out where Dermot is?”
“Not a chance, not in a million years . . . Of course, they might slip up.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “The wire taps, you mean?”
“Aye, the wire taps.”
“There’s always that. And the ex-wife, you’re going to interview her too?”
“Annie. Yeah.”
“One might have more hope with an ex-wife than a mother or a sister?” she asked optimistically.
“Annie will be a tough nut to crack.”
“Did you know her too, back in the day?”
“Oh yes.”
She gazed at me for a couple of seconds and looked at her watch.
“I must say I’m feeling a little let down,” she said.
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope you haven’t oversold me to your bosses.”
In the Morning I'll Be Gone Page 7