“But sir, if she’s as young as twenty-five, like Dr. Earley says, then she was only a kid in ’86.”
“So bloody what? Are you trying to tell me that kids can’t commit crime? Check the records of the juvenile courts, the magistrates’ courts, the reformatories.” He looked at his watch. “Off you go now.”
Detective Sergeant Paddy Flynn stuck up a hand.
“Before we get going, sir…”
“Yes, Paddy?”
“You’re asking us to go over the files again. I was wondering if it was you who gave the authorization to lock the files on the Chief Superintendent Merrigan murder.”
“What!”
“They’re locked. You need a password to get in, so you do.”
Blade looked blankly at Duffy. The assistant commissioner shook his head.
“I know nothing about it,” Macken told Flynn. He addressed the room. “Who’s authorized to lock files?”
No one it seemed.
Blade pointed at a junior detective. “Get someone from the Park over here right away—whoever’s in charge of the IBM mainframe.”
“Right away, sir.”
The Merrigan murder. The ghost that haunted Blade Macken. He stared absently at the faxes on the table. It made no sense. Why now? Why nine years on? Why exactly nine years on? No, it was impossible: What was then and what was now could in no way be related.
Yet an inner voice was telling him that it was possible, that there was indeed a tide in the affairs of men, that the flood was rising again. He’d been asked if Angel could have an accomplice in Harcourt Square. He’d dismissed the idea.
Now Blade wasn’t so certain.
Twenty-seven
Sweetman drove. They followed the Grand Canal past Old Kilmainham Jail and merged presently with the traffic flowing westward on the dual carriageway.
Lucan was a blur as Sweetman hit the gas pedal. But Blade didn’t comment; they were running out of time. Some minutes later they raced past the village of Leixlip; then Kilcock—and Macken thought suddenly of Jim Roche. He doubted if the fucker would dare show his face again at the Square. Good riddance.
The speedometer was at ninety miles per hour and climbing. Grazing black-and-white Frisian cows turned to dirty gray streaks.
The freeway ended and the road narrowed. They were passing through rolling, green countryside, tree-rich and pleasant. The road grew winding but that didn’t deter Sweetman; Macken gritted his teeth as she overtook two cars on a particularly dangerous bend.
Enfield, like most midland Irish villages, consists mainly of a single street lined with stores and bars. They had to stop and ask directions to the explosives plant. It was in the township of Clonagh, some six miles to the south. Sweetman found the turning and slowed to thirty in deference to the sharp corner. Blade smelled burning rubber.
As the terrain grew progressively more rustic, Blade mused on the facility and its isolated location. It made sense, of course: it wouldn’t be smart to build an explosives plant close to civilization. Somebody at the Square had told him that, at any given time, there was enough gelignite, dynamite, and TNT stored at Irish Industrial Explosives to blow a sizeable hole in County Meath.
No wonder Angel had been drawn there.
* * *
The facility was enclosed by an eight-foot-high chain-link steel fence. A gate, topped with razor wire, opened onto a long inspection bay and a second tall gate. There was no one manning the blue, prefab security hut to one side. There didn’t need to be: They suddenly heard the barking of many dogs. Lithe, black shapes bounded along a footpath toward the outer gate.
“Jesus, Dobermans,” Blade breathed. “I knew we should’ve brought along a sack of dog biscuits.”
He instinctively wound up his window as ten slavering beasts pummeled the steel of the fence. Their bared fangs looked as though they could gnaw through the thick metal, given time. Blade liked dogs, but there were limits.
Then, as if by some magic, the animals fell silent and, as one, dropped to a crouch. Their brown eyes grew soft and gentle. Blade found himself almost wanting to pet them.
A man approached from the direction of the main building. He wore a dark blue uniform with a cap perched jauntily on a head of snow-white hair. He took his time, stretching in the heat of the afternoon, as if just roused from sleep. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth, a dog whistle from the other. Blade heard nothing, but the cigarette flared at regular intervals as the man expelled air between his lips.
“Dr. Doolittle, I presume,” Macken murmured half to himself. Sweetman grinned.
The gates opened and Sweetman drove on through. Blade kept his window tightly shut.
“Mr. McCarthy’s in his office,” said the old man, pointing to a neat, one-story building surrounded by lawns, trees, and flowering shrubs. “Round the side, first door on the left. You can’t miss it.” He leaned down and patted a panting head. “Good girl, Queenie.” To Macken and Sweetman he said: “Did they give yiz a fright? Ah, sure they’re only playing, so they are. They’re bored stiff, God help them, with shag all to do all day.”
Blade rolled his eyes heavenward.
McCarthy met them at the entrance. He was unshaven and dressed in a jogging suit.
“Sorry to get you out on a Sunday,” Blade said.
“No problem at all. I had to do some paperwork anyway. Come on in.”
“Should the old guy be smoking?” Blade asked.
McCarthy laughed. “What did you expect, Superintendent? Kegs of gunpowder lying all over the shop? No, we’re a bit more advanced than that here. Besides, old Tom never comes near the works; he has his own little place beside the kennels.”
He showed them into an office that was immaculately tidy and modern. One wall was hung with a large map of Ireland, speckled with brightly colored pins. There was a quarrymen’s calendar; July’s pin-up was a gigantic primary crusher, located in Colorado.
“I can’t offer you anything, I’m afraid,” McCarthy said. “My secretary has the key to the tea cupboard.”
“That’s all right,” Blade said.
He took a sheet of fax paper from his pocket, laid it on the desk, and smoothed it flat. “This’ll probably mean more to you than it does to me.”
McCarthy produced a pair of reading glasses and studied the document. He frowned.
“This is from the dark ages,” he said. “We haven’t manufactured anything like this since … since…”
“Nineteen ninety?” Sweetman said.
He threw her a sidelong look. “Since thereabouts, yes.”
“Could you trace it?” Blade asked.
McCarthy turned in his seat and activated a PC.
“Our records are perfect,” he said. “My secretary keeps track of every paper clip—in a manner of speaking.” He called up a file and scrolled down it.
“Oh, dear.”
Blade’s heart sank. He glanced at Sweetman. “Something wrong?”
“No, no. Not really. It’s just that…” McCarthy went to another list. “We had that spot of bother with Slattery then. Had to let him go. He’d made a right pig’s mickey of things. Sorry, miss.”
“That’s okay,” Sweetman assured him. She had notebook and pencil in hand. “What do you mean by a ‘spot of bother,’ sir?”
McCarthy turned to face them. He removed his glasses.
“He was incompetent. Cost us a lot of money, as well as good will with a big client of ours. Ballsed up five different orders, if I remember rightly. One customer got too much, another got too little; that kind of thing.”
Blade was thoughtful. “Did anything go missing?”
“If it did, we’d have reported it, Superintendent. At least we would have, if we’d known for certain. But that’s just it: We didn’t. Slattery had jiggled things around so much that we had to go over everything by hand. It’s a big warehouse out there, y’know. But we got it sorted out in the end.” He looked sharply at Macken. “Or so we thought. A
re you saying that something did go missing after all?”
“This Slattery,” Blade said. “Where can we find him?”
“He lives with his mother in Johnstown Bridge. Or he used to anyway, when he was working for us. I’m sure I have the address somewhere.” He returned to the terminal. “Yes, here it is.”
Sweetman made a note.
* * *
“Colm Slattery?”
“Yes.…”
“Special Branch,” Macken said. “We’d like a word.”
The man, who looked to be a few years Blade’s senior, held the door half-open.
“Uh, me mother’s sick upstairs.”
Blade commiserated, then pushed the door fully open, practically knocking Slattery off his feet.
“You can’t do this!”
“I’ve just fucking done it, head. File a complaint later.”
The cottage was tiny. The first floor consisted of a single room with a small kitchen beyond; a staircase ascended at an angle of forty-five degrees. Although the sun shone brightly, the little room, crowded with worn furniture, was gloomy and cold.
“Sit down, Mr. Slattery,” Blade ordered.
Slattery sat.
“What do you want? I haven’t done anything.”
Blade said nothing. Silence was best when dealing with a nervous suspect. Maintain silence long enough and he’ll be the first to break it. Birdcalls from the backyard and the ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece were the only sounds for almost a minute.
Slattery broke the silence.
“I’d nothing to do with it. Honest to God.”
Sweetman had her notebook out. “To do with what, Mr. Slattery?”
His eyes were wild. “Nothing!”
“Fair enough,” Blade said. “We’ll talk about this ‘nothing’ later on. What we want at the moment is information on the gelignite that disappeared in 1989.”
Slattery went white. “I know nothing about that.”
“Right. That’s why McCarthy fucked you out, is it? For knowing nothing?”
Blade stood up and walked slowly behind Slattery’s chair. Before the man knew what was happening, Blade had grasped him by the left wrist and wrenched Slattery’s arm viciously up behind his back. He screamed.
“Sir!”
“Don’t worry, Sweetman. I’ll leave it in its socket like God intended it.”
“Is that you, Colm?” came a faint voice from upstairs. “Is everything all right?”
“Answer your mammy now, Colm,” Blade said. “Tell her you’re fine.” Another wrench.
“I’m fine, Ma!” Slattery gasped. “Everything’s okay.”
“I thought I heard voices.”
“Tell her it’s the telly.”
“It’s only the telly, Ma.”
“Sir, this is wrong,” Sweetman said, as Blade forced the unfortunate man down on his knees, left arm still firmly pinioned at his back. Slattery moaned.
“So is mass murder, Sweetman. And we haven’t time for niceties.”
He forced Slattery farther down until the man’s nose was touching the pile of the thick, sheepskin rug on the floor. Then he placed a foot on his head.
“I want answers, Slattery. I want them quick and I want them now. Who took the gelignite?”
No answer.
Blade rammed his foot down hard on Slattery’s head. There was a muffled shriek as his nose burst asunder on the rug.
“Sir, for God’s sake!”
He ignored Sweetman and wrenched Slattery’s wrist higher until his thumb touched his neck.
“Who, Slattery? Who took the fucking gelignite?”
“I don’t know!”
Blade kicked Slattery’s face down again, harder. Blood spattered the white sheepskin. Macken stomped down on the back of his head; once, twice. The man went into convulsions.
“One more time,” Blade said coldly. “Who took the gelignite?”
Slattery said something. His voice was barely audible.
“What? Speak up.”
Blade removed his foot from the man’s head and pulled him up by the left arm. Slattery cried out and Sweetman turned away in horror when she saw the gory ruin that was Slattery’s face. Blood flowed freely down his shirt front, staining the white rug. Some of his teeth were missing.
“Carol,” he moaned. “Carol.”
Sweetman saw something bestial cross Blade’s face; it was the feral look of a carnivore. It would haunt her dreams for weeks to come. She knew at that moment why Macken never talked about his time as a soldier. Oh yes, he would mention the places he’d visited during his tours of duty: exotic places that she’d probably never see. The bars, the clubs, the beaches. But never the combat. And now Sweetman knew why.
“Carol,” Blade said in a half-whisper. “Carol who?”
“I d-don’t know. I don’t know. She never told me her second name.”
“Okay,” Macken said, and allowed Slattery to fall to the rug amid his own blood.
So Angel had a name: Carol. Blade relaxed, went to the little window, and stared out past the flowerbox on the outside windowsill. Carol, Carol.
When he turned at last, Sweetman was wiping the man’s face with a tea towel. Already Slattery’s right eye had swelled and purpled. He was whimpering softly like a puppy.
“Colm Slattery,” Blade announced, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of being an accessory to murder.”
Twenty-eight
“Came as soon as I could,” Humphrey Bell told the assistant commissioner in an accent that never failed to set Duffy thinking of boating on the river Cam, girls in white hats and frocks, and champagne picnics on green lawns. “Traffic accident at Loughlinstown. Cars backed up for miles.”
“Sunday drivers,” Duffy said equally laconically. “But we shouldn’t complain; they’re our bread and butter. And thanks for coming at such short notice, Humphrey. Cup of tea?”
Bell waved a hand impatiently. “Let’s get it over with, Mr. Duffy. We’ve some friends coming by later this afternoon.”
Paddy Flynn and four other officers were clustered around a computer terminal in the incident room. They stood aside to make space for the IBM programmer from the Park. He sat down to the left of the keyboard.
“Right,” he said. “Show me these ‘locked’ files of yours.”
Flynn showed him. One by one, he brought up the offending files contained in the folders of 1989 and 1990.
ACCESS DENIED: PASSWORD PLEASE?
“I see what you mean,” Bell said. “Except that these files aren’t locked, Sergeant. We’re actually in the file you have up at the moment. What you see is what you get, as they say. That’s all there is; no more, no less.”
“I don’t follow you, Mr. Bell.”
“Don’t you? What I’m saying is that the file as it once was is no more. Somebody has written over it.”
Flynn scratched his chin. “Deleted it?”
“I’m afraid not. Whoever did this knew exactly what he was about. Had he simply deleted it, then we’d have stood a reasonable chance of retrieving most—if not all—of it. You see, a deleted file remains on the hard disk for a limited time, even though you’ll not find it listed in the directory. Over-write a file, however, and the original is gone forever.”
“Jesus.”
Humphrey Bell smiled. “But all is not lost, Sergeant. Would somebody get me the Park on the telephone?”
Bell was shortly put through to the IBM room.
“Declan? Humphrey here. No, no, I’m at the Square. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to fish out last week’s backup tapes for me? No, not all of them; ’89 and ’90—serious crimes. Good man.”
He turned to Flynn.
“Our friend was clever. But not clever enough. What he didn’t know is that we back up the IBM once a day. It’s a precaution that has paid dividends from time to time. You see, all the contents are saved on tape. So, should anything go awry, then it’s simply a matter of working from the copy. Our friend
may have wiped the files from the network, but their replacements should be on line in a minute or two.”
Flynn shook his head in admiration. Then he said: “Those weren’t the only files, Mr. Bell. I was cross-referencing some data from other sources.”
“We’ll get to them presently. First let’s retrieve your own.”
The files came on line as Bell had promised. Another phone call led to the retrieval of the information that pointed a finger at Jim Roche. Bell stood up.
“Time I was getting along, gentlemen. I’ve some guests whom I can’t keep waiting. Any idea who the culprit might be?”
“No, sir,” Flynn answered, “I haven’t the foggiest.”
But when Bell had shut the door behind him, the detective sergeant turned to the others and told them of his suspicions.
“Christ! Do you know what you’re saying, Paddy?”
“I know, I know. But who else could it have been? He was sitting right there when I was going through them files. He even asked for a printout.”
“Fuck me. Duffy’ll have to be told; you know that, don’t you?”
* * *
“Jayziz, what happened to him?” the desk sergeant asked as Blade escorted a battered and handcuffed Slattery into Harcourt Square. There were wisps of white wool sticking to the matted blood on his nose and cheeks.
“Walked into the back of a bus. It’ll probably need a respray. Is there an interview room free?”
“It’s a busy day, sir. We’ve that shooting in Tallaght and two rape cases.” He consulted his book. “Number two is free. He ought to get that face seen to, sir.”
“I’ll take care of it. Listen, can you ask someone to get hold of last Saturday’s paper and have it sent down there?”
“Which one, sir?”
“It doesn’t matter. The Times, the Herald, anything.”
Sweetman opened the door of the interrogation room, admitted Macken and his captive and locked it from the inside. Blade unwrapped a Hamlet and lit it. Sweetman started the recorder.
The Angel Tapes Page 17