The defence barrister sat down.
Mopey Dick stood up and asked Bob Tidey a few questions, designed to emphasise the irrelevance of his role in the case. His heart didn’t seem to be in it.
5
Leaving HMV, glad to be back in the warm sun, Vincent put his shades on and strolled back up Henry Street towards the Spire. He was thinking about Noel’s big job – the hundredth time he’d gone over it, looking at everything from every angle, narrowing the odds of anything going wrong. Vincent had done some big shit in his time, but always as part of someone’s else’s crew. This was the first big one where Vincent was in charge, with his own people, doing it for more than wages.
‘You’re kidding me,’ he’d said to Noel, when his brother brought him the story shortly before he got out of the Joy.
‘Pissed, and mouthing out of him in the back seat.’
Noel’s friend Tommo collected a fare at the taxi rank at the top of Grafton Street. Nuts Corner. Three o’clock in the morning, and the guy’s plastered, yapping about his job – driving a security van. ‘All that money in the back of the van,’ Tommo tells Noel. ‘Every time he goes to work he doesn’t know if he’s gonna get his head broken. And what’s he get at the end of the month? – peanuts. Not bad enough the pay’s shit – he’s just had a wage cut, he’s paying shitty levies the government takes to bail out the fucking banks. And here he is, with maybe three hours’ sleep ahead of him, then he’s up to deliver another vanload of cash from one shower of rich bastards to another.’
All Tommo does is say, Man, you’re right, that’s crap. And he remembers all the details and when the fare staggers into his house – out in Ballybrack – Tommo makes a note of the address.
‘Tommo wants a couple of grand – wants nothing to do with the job.’
By the time Vincent got out it was all there, the target and the modus. All it needed was a bit of tweaking from Vincent. Sometimes Noel forgot the obvious stuff, like scorching your back-trail so the police don’t have prints or traces to put under a microscope.
As Vincent reached Moore Street he paused. He’d intended buying a few steaks from FX Buckley’s, cook something classy for the lads tonight, but the warm day made him feel like a stroll. He’d get the food later.
Continuing up Henry Street he thought again of the Geek. It was somewhere up here the little bollocks went down. Remembering him in court, giving evidence, a permanent tilt to his nose where Vincent’s boot connected.
As he turned into O’Connell Street Vincent’s eyes were flashed by a reflection of sunlight from a passing bus. He stopped and just stood there, breathing deeply. The sun made everything in the city look cleaner, fresher. So fucking good to be out, and what a terrific morning. A morning made for a laid-back stroll.
Never know what might turn up.
The original idea was to have the press conference at Garda headquarters, but the media wasn’t happy with that. ‘No pizzazz,’ one crime correspondent explained to Assistant Commissioner Colin O’Keefe. ‘We need better optics than a couple of brass coppers sitting behind a table.’
O’Keefe, although alone in his office and on the phone, was careful to keep the irritation off his face. These fuckers could read your mood long-distance. This was one of those cases where media cooperation was useful, and if that meant kissing the hacks’ arses, so be it.
‘How about we do it at the murder scene?’ The hack sounded more hopeful than demanding.
O’Keefe took just a moment, then he said, ‘Good idea. I’ll set it up for this afternoon.’
‘This morning would be better,’ the hack said.
The fucker had to have the last word. O’Keefe kept his tone even. ‘That’s fine.’
Every inch of the Emmet Sweetman murder scene had long been searched and cleared, but O’Keefe had the uniforms throw up a few lengths of scene-of-crime tape, to give the area the CSI atmosphere that helped feed the hacks’ fantasies about themselves. He’d organised a handful of uniforms, to stand around looking thoughtful. In exchange for presenting a reassuring image of the police at work, the hacks got to hang about the murder scene, trying out their favourite theories of the case. Detective Chief Superintendent Malachy Hogg from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, in operational control of the murder inquiry, was along to add some weight.
There were a few minutes of informal queries and responses – mostly O’Keefe and Hogg answering amateur detective questions and saying positive things about the investigation, without giving away any detail. The main point of the exercise was the photo opportunity and the declaration that the investigation was making steady progress.
‘Assistant Commissioner?’ The reporter was from the Irish Times, puffy-faced, with an air of boredom. ‘Are you aware of an academic report showing that gun killings in Ireland are currently—’
‘To be frank, I’m too busy investigating crime to indulge in negative academic chit-chat about it.’ O’Keefe put on his sweetest smile.
‘Researchers at Aberdeen University—’
‘Next question.’
‘Proportionately, the figures show that gun homicide in Ireland is five times the rate in England and Wales.’
‘Next question.’
Another hack obliged. ‘Would you say, Assistant Commissioner that the police are leaving no stone unturned in this investigation?’
For a moment, O’Keefe thought the hack was taking the piss, but the bovine expression was too earnest to be faked. ‘No stone unturned’, he said.
When the hacks couldn’t think of any more questions, O’Keefe and Hogg stood outside the front door of the Sweetman house, chatting while the snappers got their pictures. It had a touch of drama – the investigators standing where the killers had stood when Emmet Sweetman opened his front door for the last time.
‘I have real work to do elsewhere,’ Hogg said.
‘Think of it as penance for your sins.’
‘The minister leaning on you?’
‘Every few hours, phone calls from his secretary, asking for updates. This bullshit, it takes a few minutes and it helps kill the notion that it’s open season on wealthy scumbags.’
Since the Sweetman murder, one bank had a breeze block thrown through a window and two had Molotov cocktails thrown at their front doors. In separate incidents, three mid-level bankers had been assaulted by members of the public and the son of a leading property developer was kicked senseless after leaving a nightclub. Most worrying of all, the former chief executive of another bank returned from a business trip to Chicago to find two bullet holes in the front window of his mansion. The media had agreed to a police request to play down such incidents. If bloodying the noses of bankers and developers became fashionable, things could very quickly get out of control in a target-rich environment. Today’s photo opportunity kept the media onside. It also put the word out that the police were taking the Sweetman murder so seriously that two senior officers got out from behind their desks and came personally to the murder scene.
Looking at the hacks, thirty feet away behind a length of blue-and-white tape, Hogg murmured, ‘Next time we do this, I must remember to bring a magnifying glass, get down on all fours and check the ground for clues.’
One of the hacks called out, ‘Any chance of a look inside?’
O’Keefe put on a regretful expression. ‘Not possible, I’m afraid, lads – operational reasons.’ He turned back to Hogg. ‘Ballistic results?’
‘There’s a backlog, but I’m assured they’re imminent.’
Two minutes later, duty done, O’Keefe was getting into his car. A young reporter he didn’t recognise hurried over, determined to get a few exclusive words – a little guy with a suit and over-gelled hair. He had the look of someone who took a lot of time polishing his appearance, but wasn’t very good at it.
‘Anthony Prendergast, Daily Record.’
‘How can I help you, Anthony?’
‘An in-depth interview, any time, any place.’
‘I write it up, submit it to you so you can be assured the quotes are accurate, then—’
‘Not a chance.’
Anthony smiled. ‘No harm asking – if you’re not in, you can’t win.’
‘True enough, son.’
As O’Keefe gently eased the car away, he gave the media pack a wave. Normally, he’d be sitting in the back of an official car, with a driver up front. These days of public service cuts and pay levies, the privileges of rank were best not advertised.
6
Oh, now, that’s promising.
Vincent Naylor didn’t break stride, didn’t gawk into the shoe shop, just kept moving. These days, you can’t scratch your balls without being picked up on a CCTV camera.
That could be taken care of, no bother.
In a camping supplies shop, Vincent found a plastic rain jacket wrapped up into a compact plastic bag – bright red. Just the job.
Twenty-two fucking euro. A plastic raincoat in a cutesy plastic bag – you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
All that shit about prices falling through the floor . . .
There was room for the raincoat, stuffed down his jeans, under the back of his jacket – for a moment, Vincent considered it.
Not worth the risk.
At the cash register, his shades pushed up into his hair, Vincent paid the beardie behind the counter and said, ‘Bit pricey, for a plastic mac. Celtic Tiger prices, right?’
‘It’s a first-rate product, sir, and I—’
‘Rip-off merchants.’
He dumped the cutesy plastic bag in a litter bin and kept the raincoat in the deep inside pocket of his jacket, with the Tommy Tiernan DVD. As he sauntered down a lane close to the target shop, he stopped in the doorway of an Asian food shop and adjusted his shades. He took out the raincoat, put it on, zipped it up and pulled the hood over his head. He hated hoodies, hoods of any kind – made him feel like a horse in blinkers. But there was no better shield from CCTV cameras.
Quick glance inside. No customers.
First thing, once he got into the shoe shop, he clocked the inside of the door, looking for a latch or a bolt he could slip, lock the door behind him. Nothing doing.
Not to worry – this time of morning, this kind of snooty shop, customers would be thin on the ground.
He turned towards the shop assistant, her expression slightly amused as she took in the rainwear, the shades. It took a moment, then she seemed to shrink into herself as it hit her what was happening.
The thing was, they were wearing gloves. Both of them. Without that detail, Maura Coady mightn’t have given them a second thought.
Getting out of the dark green car. Gloves, in this weather. Cream-coloured, thin, stretchy plastic gloves. Like a surgeon wears.
If just one of the two men was wearing plastic gloves it could be he had a problem with his skin. Both men—
None of your business, Maura.
When Maura Coady moved to this house in North Strand, two years back, the excitement of finally living alone, of having a space to which no one else in the world had a right, filled her with exhilaration. She didn’t have a television, a detachment from the outer world that she inherited from the long decades in the convent. But she had a window – and the view through the net curtain provided sufficient drama. The window looked directly out onto the street, no garden, the pavement just inches away. The routine was mostly humdrum, workaday, but there were moments. She’d be crossing the room, about to do some chore, when she’d notice someone wheeling a trolley back from the Spar on the corner. She’d stand and watch them pass, imagine their lives for a few moments – not out of curiosity or envy, just enjoying the fleeting indulgence. Then she’d get on with whatever she was about.
Other times, there were kids down the corner, messing – nothing rough, just youngsters enjoying a bit of horseplay, and that would hold her attention. Sometimes it brought back memories of her pupils, decades ago. Very occasionally, there would be a trivial argument – a parent and a child, a couple of adults – never anything serious. There was always something happening, small and all as it might be. She sometimes felt guilty, like she was a bit of a sneaky-peeker, but she easily forgave herself. It was just a small interest in how people lived their lives.
Now, she watched Phil Heneghan carefully stand up. He’d been kneeling at the front of his house across the road, using a pencil to clear dirt out of the holes in the ventilation block. He’d be over later today, offering to do one chore or another, as he did several times a week. The need to fight a rearguard action against household disaster was a regular thing with Phil. ‘If the vent gets blocked, you’re asking for trouble. Lord knows what kinds of mould starts growing under the floorboards and next thing you know you’re smelling dry rot.’
Phil and his wife Jacinta were even older than Maura, cresting eighty. They looked after the little house as though they were newly-weds tending a first love nest. ‘When the Tolka burst its banks – it was a long time ago, but the houses, you can still see the waterline in places. Boats, they had – they came down this street in little boats, it was so bad. Things like that, they leave their mark, even decades later.’
Phil went into his house now, and came out a moment later with a yellow duster and a tin of something. He began to work patiently on the brass knocker, bringing up the shine.
What happened was the oddest thing ever. The gloves, then the driver locking the car, his friend going to the front of the car, the driver to the back, and they both hunkered down and began working on something. She could see only the one at the back, and just the top of the other man’s head. Within seconds they stood up and walked away, down the street, past the Spar shop, then across onto the main road. And a day later the car was still sitting there outside Maura’s house.
This wasn’t right.
Ought to do something.
And maybe make a fuss over nothing. The old woman making a commotion over something that ordinary people – real people with real lives – would take for granted.
Two men park a car – maybe they didn’t know the area, they weren’t sure where the place was they were visiting, so they park somewhere, go off on foot to find the place they’re looking for. And there’s a reason, some reason, why they’re too busy to come back. Perhaps they drove away when she was asleep, came back before she got up, parked in the same spot.
Much as she wanted to believe that, it didn’t seem likely.
But it was wrong to simply presume they were up to something sinful.
No good comes of jumping to conclusions.
It was like the newspaper story she read about people who saw a Muslim man praying before he got on an airplane and they created a commotion, got the flight delayed and the Muslim taken off, so he missed his flight while they made sure he wasn’t a hijacker. Thirty years back, people in England heard an Irish accent, the first thing they thought of was maybe this is a bomber. She knew a priest – this was half a lifetime ago – who was pulled in by the police when he got off the boat at Holyhead, held for two days. No good comes of thinking the worst of people.
Why couldn’t two men arriving in the same car have some reason that required them both to wear plastic gloves?
Maura Coady had been standing at the window for the best part of an hour this morning, hoping the men would come back, drive away. She shouldn’t let another day pass without doing something. If the men had stolen the car, they could come back at any time, drive it away, maybe paint it, sell it – whoever owned it would never see it again.
She forced herself to move away from the window. She stood at the kitchen sink for ten minutes, washing up. Then she made a cup of tea, sat at the kitchen table and opened her book. When she finished the tea she washed the cup and left it on the drainer. She went back to the front room. The dark green car was still there.
The jury was removed from the courtroom while the defence put forward a motion t
o have the assault case thrown out. As the babble continued, Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey wanted to let his mind drift, but professional habits are demanding. Stay on top of the facts even through the boring bits and you’re ready for anything. He found himself parsing the defence lawyer’s argument, anticipating the prosecution’s responses. The conventions of the courtroom insisted on such jousts, in which arguments assumed a logic of their own, anchored in legal precedents and obscure judgements. Sometimes the whole thing separated completely from the facts of the case and drifted off into the upper atmosphere of legal reasoning. With each sentence, the case drifted further from the truth – that two arrogant idiots took a walloping from two overbearing policemen. Courtroom custom demanded that they all pretend that this was about matters of great legal significance.
‘In that case,’ the judge said, glancing at the clock at the back of the court, ‘I’ll adjourn until tomorrow morning, at which point I’ll rule on the application.’
‘You won’t need me – tomorrow morning?’ Tidey asked Mopey Dick.
The lawyer made a face. ‘I really think – given the way this has gone – it might be best, just in case, if you make yourself available.’
Tidey nodded. Another day on the front line in the war on crime.
7
The assistant in the shoe shop said, ‘Please,’ and Vincent Naylor said, ‘Money.’
It was a small shop, little more than a brightly lit rectangle. Cream walls, chrome and crystal retail decorations, walnut chairs and footstools. Tasteful lighting illuminated carefully positioned glass shelves on which a sparse assortment of women’s shoes was stylishly displayed. Vincent knew nothing about women’s shoes, but he’d bet the stuff in here came with cute little labels that jacked the price up big time. He’d bet the people who owned this place never said they owned a shoe shop – they’d call it a footwear boutique. They wouldn’t have customers, they’d have clientele. And they’d charge through the nose for the freedom of shopping away from the riff-raff. Shop like this, not up to paying top rents, but discreetly advertised and close enough to Grafton Street so the right people would be able to find it. Not a lot of trade, but every sale would be at a tidy price.
The Rage Page 3