The Day That Never comes (The Dublin Trilogy Book 2)

by Caimh McDonnell

  Brigit nodded, but she hadn't known that. It was dawning on her that she really didn't know very much of anything about the man she was trying to find.

  She looked at her notes and tried to think of the questions that would undoubtedly pop into her head five minutes after she left the pub. "Can you think of anyone else I should be talking to?"

  "He drinks down at O'Hagan's quite a lot. I'd ask in there."

  "OK," said Brigit, noting it down. "And where is that?"

  "Baggot Street."

  She noted that down too, then she remembered.

  "Oh," she reached down and took the phone bill out of her handbag. "I've been going through his last phone bill, and I was wondering if you could help me identify some of the numbers."

  "I'll try."

  Brigit looked at the notes she'd scribbled on it. "Do you know a lady called Sally Chambers?"

  "I do," said Johnny. "Her son is our fullback, when he turns up."

  "OK. Her number appeared a few times. I thought they might be seeing each other or something."

  Johnny scratched his lightly stubbled chin. "Christ, Bunny McGarry dating. There's a concept I'm going to spend the rest of the night trying to get my head around. But eh, no – not Sally anyway. I'd bet the house on that. I'd imagine those calls were about young Darren's inability to turn up. You've got to understand; we're less of a hurling team and more of an early intervention scheme for potential young offenders. Having said that, as far as I'm aware, there's no trouble at home. I mean, there's never been a dad in the picture that I know of."

  "Right. OK. One last thing. The other thing is…" Christ, thought Brigit, just say it. This is an investigation. Investigate. "Going back to the subject of women. I was trying all these numbers and one of them is for an… escort agency."

  Johnny's perfectly trimmed eyebrows made a concerted attempt to jump off his head. "Fuuuuuck."

  "I take it that's not something that he'd—"

  "Ehm, no," said Johnny.

  It was a toss-up as to which of the two of them was the more embarrassed. She slurped a nervous sip of her Diet Coke and ploughed ahead, not making eye contact as she did so. "Do you know if he would've ever… ?"

  She let that hang in the air filled with awkward silence. In the background, the barman noisily cleared a nostril.

  "I don't know what you're asking," said Johnny.

  "Neither do I," said Brigit.

  "I guess, I mean, he could be lonely. Probably is, come to think of it. We just never… Bunny didn't ever talk about stuff like that." Johnny shifted a little in his seat. "To be entirely honest, last time I saw him, we had a bit of an argument. When I wasn't getting responses for a few days, I thought he just had the hump with me."

  "What was it about?"

  "Nothing really, I mean in hindsight." Johnny shrugged. "I thought he was maybe going a bit heavy on the booze. He didn't exactly appreciate the input. I'm a little… well, those twelve steps can lead to a high horse at times I guess."

  This brought Brigit onto the other thing.

  "I also wanted to ask you. They found his car out in Howth. You don't know any reason he'd be out there?"

  Johnny shook his head.

  "Only… it was in a car park near what I suppose you'd call a popular suicide spot."

  "Oh," said Johnny.

  "You don't think he'd…"

  Johnny ran his right hand through his hair and sighed. "I don't know. I really don't know."

  "I mean," said Brigit, "he doesn't exactly strike you as the type."

  "Here's the thing," said Johnny, "and I speak as someone who is going to be manning a helpline in an hour. In the right circumstances, in the right moment of weakness… everybody is the type."

  Chapter Twelve

  Detective Wilson took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  "Come in."

  He entered. Detective Superintendent Burns was sitting behind her desk, putting on a pair of running shoes. Wilson blushed. His timing wasn't getting any better. He'd been terrified of coming in here, taking two nervous pees and a walk around the block to build up the courage. It had been three hours since he had introduced himself to his new boss by throwing up on her shoes after viewing the mutilated corpse of Craig Blake. Since then, he had considered resignation, suicide and briefly, throwing up on somebody else’s shoes, in a desperate hope that he could turn it into a fun ‘rite of passage’ team bonding thing. Then he had remembered that they were a team of highly trained law enforcement officials, and sadly not a university rugby team.

  "Superintendent sir, er… ma’am, have you got a second?"

  "The news of the murder has just hit the media, so if this is about my shoes, then you've already apologised."

  Wilson glanced down, and noticed the footwear in question sitting in the bin.

  "No it's not, I mean… although, can I just say again… if you'd allow me to replace them…"

  "Yes, you can buy me shoes, and then the other detectives can take turns taking me to dinner and getting me sexy lingerie. Forget it. Now, I've got a high profile corpse to deal with so unless there's anything else, or you'd like to pee in my handbag…"

  "Yes," said Wilson, blushing again, before adding, "I mean on the ‘something else’ front. About the body… or, I mean, the words on the wall. 'This is the day that never comes.'"

  "Yes, I was there too. What about them?"

  "They rang a bell with me, and I double-checked."

  Wilson took the laptop from under his arm and pointed towards the desk. Burns nodded and Wilson put the laptop down.

  "There is a Metallica song of that name," said Wilson.

  "Oh Christ, if you're going to pitch me some heavy metal killer cult angle Wilson—"

  "Oh no, ma’am," interrupted Wilson, as he turned the laptop around to face her. "This is a speech delivered about six weeks ago by Father Daniel Franks."

  "Oh Christ, no," said Burns. "I'll take the cult, please."

  Father Franks was famous, or indeed infamous depending on whom you asked. Certainly everyone knew who he was. A short man, bald, save for wild tufts of hair that sprouted above his ears, with blazing green eyes that spoke of a forest fire in the middle-distance. He was from Armagh, but he'd been stationed down in Dublin for most of his stint in the collar, having only found his calling in his thirties. Until recently he'd been a mild-mannered parish priest in central Dublin, toiling away in obscurity; that was, until he went rogue. When a needle exchange had been closed down due to cutbacks, he'd gone off to a reporter from the evening paper. Drug use should be decriminalised, prostitution should be legalised. Rather than condemnation, the country should offer support and understanding to those that found themselves on the fringes of society. It'd all been said before, but the collar on the guy saying it had made it news. Still, it was only a one-day story except a canny TV producer had spotted it and put him on one of the political panel shows. Franks had torn a junior minister to shreds to such an extent that the poor lad had nearly been in tears by the end. The phrase he'd numbly repeated over and over again – ‘We're establishing a working party’ – had become a social media punchline. While the once-future Taoiseach had seen his dreams go up in smoke on national telly, his tormentor had only been getting warmed up. There was a hypocrisy at the heart of Irish society that needed to be addressed, said Franks. Corporations were beatified while ordinary people were sacrificed. The meek might well inherit the Earth, but what state would it be in when they did? He'd roared his frustration out into the world, and a lot of people had found it echoed in their front rooms. It wasn't a particularly new message; far from it. It'd been said many ways, many times before, but somehow Father Franks had found himself standing at the point where opportunity and circumstance collided. It could have been anyone, but it wasn't – it was him.

  The opposition parties had been quick to try and latch onto him, only to receive their own smacks in the chops. If you'd been in power at any point in the last twenty years the
n you were part of the problem too. You also couldn't claim to be on the side of the common man while your former brothers-in-arms ran protection rackets and dealt drugs on street corners. Franks was unafraid, and he was knocking down walls.

  It was powerful stuff, some old-school fire and brimstone. Suddenly his parish church in the Liberties went from a third-full on a Sunday to rammed to the rafters every morning. The Church was delighted. This was the new face of modern Catholicism, reconnecting with their lost congregation. Franks was all of that, right up until he started preaching that it was sinful how the Church and the religious orders owned billions of euros worth of property while so many slept homeless on the street. Then he questioned why the Bishop of Rome lived in a golden palace, while so many went hungry around the world. Why the life of a child was sacred right up until the point it was born. They'd tried to whisk him away for a time of prayer and reflection, bring him to Rome, send him on a mission to Africa, give him a wee sabbatical – anything. Still, the man the press had dubbed ‘Ireland's turbulent priest’ was not for moving. Instead, when they'd locked him out, he'd turned up to his own church and preached from the steps. The public flocked to him and, love him or hate him, he was must-see TV and a headline waiting to happen.

  In short, anything linking him to her first big case as head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation was something Detective Superintendent Susan Burns needed about as much as another shoe full of Wilson’s breakfast. She sighed. "Go on, play the thing."

  It was the speech that Franks had delivered outside the GPO. He'd turned up with a mobile PA, and word had spread like wildfire on social media. Thousands had flocked there. The Gardaí had initially tried to shut him down, but had eventually closed off the street instead. The Commissioner had been left with a no-win call; allow an illegal gathering and receive all kinds of grief from government ministers, or wake up to a pile of Sunday newspaper front pages filled with pictures of her officers dragging a campaigning priest away. She had opted for the private grief, rather than being publicly lambasted as a leader of jackbooted thugs. Still, it hadn't helped that she'd been forced to officially reprimand two uniformed officers when they were filmed enthusiastically cheering along.

  Wilson pressed play on the video. Franks was standing on top of an honest-to-God wooden crate for a stage. It was shaky mobile phone footage that wobbled about as its owner was jostled in the large crowd.

  "They tell us, ‘these are the days of austerity. These are the days when we all have to tighten our belts.’"

  Boos from the crowd.

  "But what of the corrupt corporations? The profiteers? The speculators? When will those who cut corners, who fiddled the deals – who defied the laws this country was built on, both legal and moral, to line their own pockets – when will they be made to justify what they have done?"

  Cheers.

  "When is the day that they will pay their fair share?"

  Cheers.

  "When is the day when those who brought this country to its knees will be made to stand and face the people's wrath for their wrongdoings?"

  Cheers.

  "When is that day? I tell you, my friends; that is the day that never comes."

  Wilson clicked the mouse to stop the video.

  DSI Burns looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. "Tremendous. Just what this case needs. Politics."

  "I thought it might help with motive."

  "Yes," said Burns, "it narrows it down to Father Franks, and anyone who heard him speak, read about it or has access to the Internet."

  "Actually, it can't be Franks himself," said Wilson.

  Burns looked at him for a couple of seconds before realisation hit. "Oh, of course – he's holed up in that bloody Ark thing isn't he?"

  It had happened right after the GPO speech. Catching the Gardaí cold again, he'd marched his supporters down the Quays into the International Financial Services Centre and straight into the vacant Strander building, left conveniently open by a sympathetic security guard. Built for a Spanish bank at the Irish Government's expense, it had sat idle and empty since completion. Along the way it had been given to an Irish bank, then bought back when they too had gone into receivership. The government had now paid for it twice and nobody had used it. It was an embarrassment they were keen to shift. Franks had decided to take it off their hands. He'd moved in and opened it as Dublin's biggest and newest homeless shelter. The neighbours were less than pleased; it didn't quite fit in with the vibe the Financial Services Centre was going for. While the government had debated and dawdled, Frank's enthusiastic supporters had built barricades and settled in for the long haul. When the Gardaí had been instructed to stop food supplies being delivered, the public had hurled the supplies over the barriers. It was yet another lose-lose situation. The Gardaí had already been made to look bad. They'd arrested a 73-year-old woman when her erratic throwing motion had resulted in a guard getting a can of beans to the earhole. One of the newspapers had done a cartoon. It hadn't been funny, but then they never were.

  "What a mess," said Burns. "Right, I'll have to take it upstairs. A murder like this: the torture, the showmanship, the message. This whack job isn't going to stop until he's caught. We need to warn the other two of those Skylark pricks that they might be in danger, for a start."

  "Yes, ma’am."

  "It might be nothing, but seeing as you found it, I want you to – carefully – start looking into the Franks angle. See if there's anyone around him who might have decided to put the good Father's words into action."

  "Yes, ma’am."

  "I'm not going to mention this just yet, in the team briefing or in the news conference. The frenzy is already going to be quite something. Craig Blake and his buddies weren't exactly popular. We've currently got four million suspects. Let’s try and get that number down slightly."

  "Yes, ma’am," repeated Wilson, as he turned to leave.

  "Oh and Wilson… good work."

  "Thank you, ma’am." He allowed himself a slight smile of relief.

  "I want you to remember I said that, when you close that door and realise that your fly has been open this whole time."

  "Yes, ma’am."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday 5 February 2000 – Morning

  Councillor Veronica Smyth pulled the duvet tighter as her husband nudged her in the back.

  "Not a chance, Niall, and you know why."

  "No I… I think there's somebody outside."

  She opened one eye, and looked at the closed curtains that thin beams of sunlight were beginning to sneak around. "It's morning; I'd imagine there's lots of people outside."

  They'd been out late at a function the night before, and it'd been his turn to drive. She'd availed herself of the free bar, and then they'd replayed the argument greatest hits on the drive home.

  "There's someone in the garden," he insisted.

  "Ah, get up and look if it—"

  She sat bolt upright as something very solid thumped hard against their window.

  "What the?!"

  Niall clambered out of bed and rushed over to the curtains, pulling the edge aside to peek out. Sunlight flooded in around him as he spoke.

  "It's… kids."

  Veronica lay her head back down on her pillow and turned over.

  "Go and tell them to piss off."

  "No I mean it's… it's lots and lots of kids."

  Veronica Smyth, having hastily dressed, was standing at their patio doors with her husband Niall, looking out in disbelief. Their large back lawn was her pride and joy. She didn't do any of the work on it herself, mind you, but she gave the gardener extensive directions. It was the biggest on the road, and they'd gone to great lengths to achieve the perfect blend of perennials to ensure that it would be glorious in summer and a dark-hued delight in winter. Right at that moment, twenty or so pre-teen children were traipsing across it, wielding hurleys and inexpertly whacking balls to one another. Directly in front of her, one young boy was
attempting to wallop a ball out of an arrangement of lilies which cost more than the average weekly wage.

  Veronica heaved the door open. "What the hell is the meaning of this?"

  Twenty young faces turned to look at her.

  "Keep going, children."

  Veronica turned to look at the source of the voice. Sitting in a deckchair under the shade of the house was a woman in her sixties, wearing a garish pink PVC raincoat.

  Veronica marched towards her.

  "Are you in charge here?"

  "That's right love, I am."

  "This is private property. You have no right to be here."

  "Ah, well," said the woman, looking disconcertingly relaxed as she opened a flask of tea and began pouring it. "What you're looking at here, is the St Jude's hurling team who're about to lose their field. We heard how youse had a massive garden – lovely rhododendrons by the way – and we thought, ‘sure let’s go out and practice there.’"

  "You can't… all complaints about issues involving planning permission can be raised through the proper channels."

  "Yeah, yeah. We tried all that, now we're doin' this instead."

  "You have two choices, madam; either you remove yourself and these children from my property instantly, or I will phone the police."

  The woman noisily slurped at her tea, and then smacked her lips.

  "I'll have option two, ta very much."

  "Right, well then, so be it."

  Veronica turned, walloping into Niall who was standing gormlessly behind her.

  "Christ’s sake, Niall…"

  "Hello. Did someone call the Gardaí?"

  Veronica turned back to see a large man in his mid-thirties, leaning over the side gate and holding up a Garda ID card. "Detective McGarry. We received a complaint."