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

by Caimh McDonnell

  As they passed Hartigan's house, Paul stopped and pulled Maggie back. Through the front window he could see Hartigan and Maloney and they were quite clearly arguing. Paul crouched behind one of the gate pillars. Hartigan was towering over the smaller man, pointing a finger angrily in his face. The double glazing must have been good, because there appeared to be shouting going on, and Hartigan was doing the lion's share of it.

  Maloney said something and suddenly Hartigan knocked the glass of whiskey out of the smaller man's hands and pushed him. Maloney stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch. Hartigan leapt on top of him. Paul watched in stunned disbelief as he could see Hartigan bearing down on the other man, his hands clearly wrapped around his business partner’s throat.

  "Holy shit."

  Maloney's leg flailed wildly, knocking over a tall lamp. As Paul was considering what to do, a door flew open and Maloney's driver appeared. With the relaxed calm of a parent breaking up two rambunctious kids, he enveloped Hartigan in a bear hug and physically lifted him off of his boss and out of the room.

  Maloney stood up a couple of seconds later, his face red and clearly gasping for air. Paul watched him drag in a few coughing, ragged breaths as he leaned against the mantelpiece, before picking up a cushion and petulantly starting to walloping the sofa with it. Then, as if suddenly aware of his surroundings, Maloney turned to look out the window. Paul pulled Maggie away, resisting the urge to glance back to see if their departure was being noticed

  Only as he walked away did Paul think of the camera in his pocket and curse himself. He didn't know what it meant, but clearly, all was not well amongst the remaining members of the Skylark Three. As he hurried back towards the car, another thought struck him. Hartigan had a violent temper. They'd lost him on Tuesday night and so they had no idea where he'd been when Craig Blake had been murdered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Detective Superintendent Susan Burns calmly closed the blinds to her new office, checked that this did in fact prevent any member of her team from seeing her, and then kicked the wall. The thinking behind this was twofold. Firstly, she'd read an article in the New Scientist that said distracting your brain with a pain stimulus was a good way of refocusing it, to take a fresh view of a problem that was proving unsolvable. There had been quotes from a neurologist, coloured diagrams of the brain and a detailed plan for further academic study of the hypothesis. The second reason she'd kicked the wall was that she really felt like kicking something.

  On her desk sat two provisional reports, prepared with lightning speed by their respective departments. The call had gone out; her team were to be given every assistance. She had wasted a remarkable chunk of the last twenty-four hours on the phone, with the commissioner, two government ministers and the Taoiseach’s right-hand man, having that made clear to her.

  The first report had been prepared by Dr Denise Devane, the state pathologist. She was legendary for her thoroughness, and this was the thickest such report that Burns had ever seen. In it, she had listed in gut-wrenching detail the indignities that had been delivered unto Craig Blake. Amongst the highlights that would live too long in Burns’s memory were that the subject had had his lips, ears, fingernails and eyelids removed, almost certainly antemortem. Toes had been broken, there was evidence of electrical trauma to the genitals and puncturing of the left eyeball. In short, somebody had gone to great lengths to inflict as much pain and suffering on Blake as was humanly possible. The cause of death was put down as a heart attack brought about by severe shock and loss of blood. Reading between the lines, death was the best thing that happened to Craig Blake that night. Dr Devane was also renowned for being frustratingly reluctant to speculate, yet this time she had been moved to. She believed, in her professional opinion, that anyone with the capability and knowhow to perform such acts had significant medical knowledge. Devane had also followed up the report with a less official late-night call. ‘Susan, do you have any idea what kind of a mind it takes to be able to calmly stand there and do something like that to a living, breathing, human being?’

  The second report had been from the Technical Bureau, compiled by Doakes – widely considered their very best – and signed off by his boss, DSI O'Brien. She could see how keen they were to show their workings-out too, and to emphasise how the report was only provisional. Fingerprints in the house had been minimal, once the victim's own had been eliminated. Along with his Polish cleaning lady's, there had been evidence of three others currently unaccounted for. While not directly saying it, the report made clear they weren't “likely lads”. Two sets had been found upstairs and a third set in the kitchen area, away from the body. They'd chase them down, but they'd quite probably end up belonging to an electrician and a couple of dinner party guests. The blood splatter analysis also made grim reading, mainly for the lack of it. Brutal as this was, there was precious little evidence to indicate that any of it was done in a frenzy. To put it into the more common policing vernacular; they were looking for a Grade-A sick and twisted bastard who enjoyed his or her work.

  Hollywood skewed the public's perception of such things but in reality, leaving aside organised crime, most murders were ill-considered acts of spontaneous passion. Those that weren't were mostly poorly executed plans, reality warping what the perpetrator expects from the act. Not in this case. Whoever had done this was cool, calm and knew exactly what they were doing. They'd left all kinds of twisted carnage, but precious little actual evidence. The Technical Bureau's assessment had also matched the one given by detectives at the scene; there was no evidence to suggest a break-in. Blake may have known his killer, or he just might have opened the door to find a gun pointing in his face.

  There was a polite knock on Burns's office door. She moved back behind her desk and sat down.

  "Come in."

  The door opened and Superintendent Mark Gettigan, head of the Garda Press Relations office, stuck his head in.

  "Susan, I have something for you."

  "Is it good news?"

  "I very much doubt it."

  She waved him inside and he closed the door behind him.

  "Do you know what a Púca is?"

  "Some kind of fairy?"

  "It is a spirit in Irish mythology. Considered to be bringers of both good and bad fortune. There are various versions of the myth, of course, it varies wildly."

  "OK," said Burns, still not getting it.

  He pulled an A4 sheet from the folder in his hand and slid it across the desk to her. "This is a copy of an e-mail the RTÉ news desk received just under an hour ago; 8:17 am to be precise. The Irish Times have confirmed they've got it too. I'll inform the Tech Bureau guys as per protocol, but odds are high it came from an untraceable darknet e-mail address."

  "Christ," said Burns, not looking up from what she was reading. "Do we have any reason to believe it is genuine? Could be some keyboard warrior living out his fantasies in his ma's spare room?"

  "I'm afraid there were attachments."

  Gettigan took out two pictures and slid them across the desk too. One was of Craig Blake, tied to the chair, still alive. DSI Burns looked at it and felt her stomach churn. She was looking at a man who must have known he was about to die, and yet who was still attempting to smile for the camera. She remembered what one of her instructors had told her down at Templemore; never underestimate the human desire to stay alive, regardless of the circumstances. The other picture was of the bloody writing on the wall. 'This is the day that never comes.'

  "Christ," said DSI Burns, "Can we stop all of this getting out?"

  "Yes and no. Nobody legit is going to publish the first picture. I guess the sender knew that. It's just there for veracity's sake. With regards to the rest, RTÉ and the papers will grumble to varying degrees, but they'll play ball. I've got to return calls to the AP and Fox News when I get back upstairs though, and I'm guessing my call-sheet has got longer in the meantime. If this has gone to Internet news, Al Jazeera, the Russians…"

  Burns leaned
back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling.

  "God help us all."

  "I'm afraid so," said Gettigan. "This is out there. I strongly suggest we brief the press this morning and try and do whatever we can to manage it."

  Burns gave a hollow laugh. "Good luck with that."

  Gettigan gave her a smile that spoke of sympathy and more than a little relief that he wasn't sitting in her chair.

  "OK Mark, set it up and draft a statement. I'll brief the team and liaise with the tech boys."

  "Sure. I'll touch base in an hour."

  He turned around and headed back out of her office.

  Burns lowered her head and read through the e-mail again.

  To whom it may concern,

  We are the Púca. For too long the ordinary hard-working people of Ireland have had to suffer the consequences of crimes committed by the wealthy, privileged few. A country has been brought to its knees by the corrupt acts of an untouchable cabal, who have been allowed to walk away without facing the consequences of their actions. They sit amongst their ill-gotten wealth and watch the common man suffer. The politicians have given the Irish people no justice. The law has given the Irish people no justice. We are that justice. Craig Blake was the first to taste that justice, he will not be the last.

  Nobody who has a clear conscience has anything to fear from us. Those that do not, this is your one and only warning. Confess your sins and make right your crimes. The day of judgement is at hand. Welcome to the new revolution.

  We are the Púca, and this is the day that never comes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gerry: And we’re back. We’ve Richard on the line who is completing his PhD in economics out in UCD. So, Richard, explain to me again this system you’re proposing?

  Richard: It’s very simple, Gerry – we put a price on a human life.

  Gerry: But ye can’t do that, can ye?

  Richard: Sure you can, we do it all the time. When they decide on the funding for the Health Service – we all know, the more money you put in, the more lives you save. When insurance companies pay out compensation, when a faulty car part leads to a loss of life, they effectively set a price. Why not just come out and put it out there? Call it a million euro. If you cost a life, that’s the price.

  Gerry: So, no prison?

  Richard: For murder? Absolutely. But if you do it indirectly, then you pay the fine. So say, your… oh, I don’t know, disastrous housing development costs lives, which it does. When you add up the effects of stress, financial hardship and so on, it costs lives. A judge looks at it, puts a number on it, then you have to pay that fine.

  Gerry: And then the person who is responsible for the loss of all those lives walks away free?

  Richard: Isn’t that what they’re doing now? At least this way, we get a few quid to chuck into the Health Service and save a few other lives.

  Gerry: And what happens if you can’t pay the fine?

  Richard: Then… we kill you.

  Brigit turned off the car’s engine and sighed. She was tired, dog-tired. The rain was teeming down around her with such velocity that it made loud, plopping splashes as it collided with the windscreen. Typical Irish weather; when they finally got a bit of summer heat, it combined with the perpetual rain to unleash a thunderous downpour.

  It had been a long and largely fruitless day. After her meeting with Johnny Canning yesterday, she'd gone home and come up with what looked like a comprehensive plan of attack for the Bunny investigation. She'd spent the day going through it step-by-step and getting nowhere fast.

  She'd started by heading out to Howth in order to meet Sergeant Sinead Geraghty. The good sergeant had come across as wary and stand-offish from the get-go. Brigit got the impression that the word may have come down from on high that the Gardaí didn't want anything to do with Bunny McGarry, disappeared or otherwise. Brigit couldn't tell if Geraghty was angry about being questioned, angry with not being allowed to help or just angry at something entirely unrelated. The woman gave off the vibe of having so many chips on her shoulder that she could open her own shop. She'd tersely confirmed the basic facts about Bunny's car that Paul had left in his initial note and not much else. Brigit had been assured that Bunny McGarry was now listed as a missing person, and the Gardaí would do everything in their power to assist in his safe return. It was all said in a ‘don't call us, we'll call you’ kind of a way.

  From there, Brigit had gone up to the car park near Howth Head where Bunny's car had been found. Then she'd taken the path up to the cliffs. On a sunny Friday morning, the place had been deserted save for the occasional sprightly pensioner out on a stroll, or a jogging yummy mummy. The tourist buses would be arriving soon enough, and the place would be crammed with unimpressed continental youth.

  When she'd found herself alone on the cliff walk, Brigit had closed her eyes. She'd read this technique in a book once. She drew in a lungful of sea air and tasted salt on her lips as seagulls argued in the distance. I am Bunny McGarry. I'm a ham-fisted, bollock-booting, larger-than-life force of nature who seems to have little going on save for a consistently awful hurling team and a job. A job I love. A job they've taken away from me because I was willing to do whatever it took to see justice. I'm a drinker and – remembering that night when she had found him amongst the burnt ruins of the St Jude's clubhouse – I've got one of those melancholic Irish hearts, prone to bruised introspection, especially when inebriated. Then she remembered his younger, happier face in that picture by his bed, his arm around the beautiful woman and how that picture had been turned towards the wall. The look of pride in his eyes in each one of those team photographs in his spare room. And Johnny Canning saying that in his experience, given the right circumstance… everyone was the type.

  Then she'd opened her eyes and tried to imagine Bunny McGarry, almost certainly drunk, taking a few steps back to allow a run-up before he hurled his immense body into the great beyond, to crash on the rocks below. She couldn't see it. She was aware that emotion was quite possibly getting in the way of logic but still; she couldn't imagine Bunny McGarry throwing himself off a cliff. Throwing somebody else of a cliff, now that was a different matter.

  She'd left there and visited the four pubs and two takeaways that were on the Howth promenade, showing the staff at each place the picture of Bunny and each in turn had said they'd never seen him. She left her number with a few of the pubs, in case their usual Friday night staff remembered anything when they came in. It didn't seem likely, but you never knew. Bunny could be accused of a lot of things, but not being memorable wasn't one of them.

  From there Brigit had headed into town and visited some of the parents of St Jude's players who had appeared on Bunny's phone bill. Here the picture had proven to be a different kind of help. Once they'd seen Bunny with his arm around her, people had opened up. It'd been educational but not much else. They all spoke of him with a mixture of reverence and fear. Everybody had a story of someone who he'd helped and somebody who had made the mistake of crossing him. There'd even been a couple of cases of both.

  She'd caught Sally Chambers as she'd returned home in her lunch hour. She worked as an administrator at the Department of Public Works. She had that perpetually harried edge about her. She was a mother to four boys, whose father was in prison in England last she'd heard or rotting in hell; either was fine by her. She had explained this with an embarrassed smile as she'd scurried around the front room, picking up toys, clothes and TV remotes. Brigit had felt bad, but Sally had insisted a cup of tea on her and then furiously set about cleaning the house around her, apologising all the while.

  As they’d made small talk, Brigit had heard a couple of thumps from upstairs. Sally had seemed to visibly sag at the sound and winced as an elderly, angry female voice had bounced down the stairs.

  "Sally?"

  "I'll be up in a minute, gran."

  "Who's downstairs?"

  "Just a visitor. Stay where you are."

  "I'm coming down."r />
  "There's no need."

  "I'll be down."

  Sally rolled her eyes then tried to play it off with a smile. "She's a bit of a handful."

  Four boys and an elderly relative, thought Brigit, Sally might be in line for some kind of award.

  "Bunny has been very good though, helping with my Darren. He plays fullback. He's a good boy but he can be a bit … he's got that ADHD, so the school says. They gave us medication for a while but then it stopped because of the cutbacks. Didn't help that much, to be honest with you."

  An elderly woman of what must be eighty appeared in the doorway, with her blue wig at a jaunty angle and a face like thunder. She gawped at Brigit through thick glasses. "Oh, I thought it'd be that Maguire scumbag, trying to squeeze his money."

  "Gran!" said Sally, clearly keen to avoid that subject.

  "Who're you?" she said to Brigit, ignoring her granddaughter entirely.

  Brigit stood up and extended her hand. "My name is Brigit Conroy. I'm a friend of Bunny McGarry's."

  "That bastard," she spat.

  "Gran!" said Sally again, the outrage lending more urgency to her voice this time.

  "He locked up our Cormac last year. Never done nothing wrong, the lad. Bloody fascist peelers."

  Sally moved towards the door as Brigit stepped back and withdrew her unshaken hand.

  "My lunch hour's nearly up, gran. Can you go into the kitchen and microwave the rest of last night's curry for me, please?"

  The two women locked eyes and Brigit looked away in embarrassment as they held a silent conversation. Brigit stared at the family portrait of Sally and her four sons on the mantelpiece, four grinning bundles of energy and a mother's eyes full of pride, hope and worry.

  She heard the old lady turn and shuffle down the short hall to the kitchen, mumbling beneath her breath as she did.