Angels in the Moonlight_A prequel to The Dublin Trilogy

by Caimh McDonnell

  “I don’t know his name,” said Gringo. “He’s that big lanky fella by the bar.”

  Bunny looked over. “Is he normally that pale?”

  “I doubt it.” Gringo pushed out a stool that he’d been saving for Bunny.

  As Bunny sat down, a pint of stout appeared in front of him and he joined in the toasting of his own fraudulent celebration. “Happy fecking birthday to me – ye shower of pricks.”

  They all cheered and then their attention diverted back to their own conversations.

  “Anyway, amigo, I was just telling Garda Clarke here about your heroics today.”

  Bunny could feel himself blush. Moira Clarke had been at the station a couple of years. She was a nice girl. Bunny had seen her play football for the Garda team at the civil service games last year; she had a good burst of speed on her.

  “Ara, heroics me arse,” said Bunny. “Don’t mind his nonsense.”

  “He’s too modest, Moira, that’s part of his charm. He’d be his generation’s John Wayne if he wasn’t so afflicted with that debilitating Cork accent.”

  “Feck you.”

  “Didn’t understand a word of that. So anyway, this fella’s up on the ledge of the building and he’s giving it, ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone – I’m jumping, I’m jumping, man!’ and Bunny, cool as a cucumber, just hops out there and goes, ‘Relax, take it easy, we’re all friends here.’ He has a very charming way about him when he wants to.”

  Moira grinned. “Oh, I don’t doubt it.”

  “So he’s all like, ‘Relax, have a smoke, let’s talk about this.’ He gives the lad a cig and then offers him a light and as he leans across – wham – slams the cuffs on him.”

  Moira placed her hand on her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  “And he’s like, ‘You want to jump, then let’s jump!’”

  “Jesus!” said Moira. “And where were you when this was all going on?”

  “Ah,” said Bunny. “Detective Sergeant Spain was down on the ground, supervising from a distance.”

  Gringo looked affronted. “Grafton Street was packed with innocent women and children.”

  “And men,” said Bunny.

  “There’s no such thing as an innocent man,” said Gringo.

  “You’re not wrong there,” agreed Clarke, before finishing off the last third of her pint with a flourish. “Besides, Gringo, you were right to be careful, what with you being only two days from retirement.”

  Gringo slapped the table in frustration as Clarke roared with laughter.

  “Seriously, Gringo, do you think there’s a guard in the country who hasn’t seen Lethal Weapon?”

  “If there is, I’m going to find the poor bastard. I’m going to get this story circulating if it kills me.”

  “Good luck,” said Clarke. “You’d have more chance of convincing people that Bunny has been a ghost this whole time.” She stood up. “Same again for the birthday boy?”

  “Thanks, Moira,” said Bunny, “fierce kind of you.”

  “Hey, what about me?” said Gringo.

  “Why, DS Spain, I’m sure if you sit here long enough, some lucky lady will come bearing gifts of alcohol and peanuts.”

  And with that she was off and away towards the crowded bar.

  Gringo leaned across the table. “You should ask her out.”

  “Moira?” said Bunny. “Don’t be daft. I’ve a good ten years on her.”

  “And so what? Women go for the mature gentleman, y’know.”

  Bunny belched. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time but that’s a new one.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Besides,” said Bunny, “she’s clearly gaga for Gringo, like every other lady in a five-mile radius.”

  “Yeah, apart from the one I married.”

  “Ah here, none of that. If I’m going along with this bullshit birthday, we’ll have none of your moping.”

  Gringo held his hands up in surrender.

  “Besides,” continued Bunny, “now that you’re about to be re-released onto the market, I can point out that I saw DS Jessica Cunningham on my way out of the station earlier. Apparently she is back from her stint in Galway and is working for Rigger O’Rourke now. You could resume your efforts at being the man who melts her frozen heart.”

  Gringo actually blushed. “Shut up. I still can’t believe I told you that.”

  DS Jessica Cunningham was mid-thirties, blonde, six foot, athletic and with all the natural warmth of a meat grinder. She was an infamous ball-breaker. Legend had it she once reported a fellow guard for being out of uniform. He had been wearing a Santa hat on Christmas Eve. To be fair, she was very good at the job. She had to be, as her ascension through the ranks certainly couldn’t be put down to her winning way with people. This wasn’t a woman having to be tough to live in the man’s world of policing either; Bunny knew several female guards who managed to do the job and retain membership of humanity. In fact, it was Detective Pamela Cassidy who had come up with Cunningham’s nickname. As these things went, it was both apposite and a guaranteed death sentence if you were foolish enough to repeat it in her presence. Robotits was not known for her sense of humour.

  All of this meant that Bunny was in possession of what would be a seismic slice of gossip if he ever shared it with anyone. Namely, that prior to meeting his soon-to-be ex-wife, Gringo and DS Cunningham had enjoyed an “arrangement”.

  Bunny leaned in and lowered his voice. “You never did tell me, what was the sex like?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I mean,” continued Bunny, “I’d imagine it’d be a bit like one of those insects where she rips your willy off when she’s done with you.”

  “And to think, I was happy you didn’t fall off that building.”

  “Maybe it was entirely the opposite though. Was she a crier? Were you a crier? I could easily see it ending in tears.”

  “One more word out of you and this chat will end in tears.”

  “So we’re agreed,” said Bunny, extending his pint out. “No more discussion of romance this evening.”

  Gringo clinked glasses. “Done, ye prick.”

  They both took a drag on their pints.

  Truth be told, Gringo wasn’t exactly short of female attention. Tall and slim with brown hair, he bore more than a passing resemblance to a Star Wars-era Harrison Ford. So much so, that when he’d worn a waistcoat to Rigger O’Rourke’s wedding a couple of years ago, people had immediately taken to calling Bunny “Chewbacca”. It hadn’t stuck, thanks in no small part to the incident involving Bunny and the swan later in the evening, which had caused people to forget all about the Chewie references.

  Bunny had met Gringo on their first day of Garda training down at Templemore, when he’d been assigned him as a criminology lab partner. Initially, Bunny had disliked him on principle. He looked like a bit of a poser – hell, he was a poser – but he’d grown on Bunny over time. Gringo’s saving grace was that he never took himself too seriously. They made an unlikely pair. Bunny, the rough-as-arseholes muck savage, and Gringo, the suave and calculating Dublin sophisticate. Beneath the stylish exterior, though, there was a rock-solid man. He’d never been anything but a good friend and – for what it was worth – a loyal husband, as far as Bunny knew, and Bunny would know more than anyone. He didn’t know much about these things but it seemed to him that Sandra, the soon-to-be-ex Mrs Spain, had always believed her husband was too good to be true. Her own insecurities had caused her to distrust him. She’d got more and more erratic through eight years of marriage, and then she’d left him for a landscape gardener. Last Bunny had heard, they’d a kid on the way. The divorce hadn’t even been finalised yet.

  “So,” said Gringo, “I’ve a big night planned.”

  “Good luck. I look forward to hearing all about it. I’m staying for a couple then I’m off to my bed.”

  “Would you like to bet on that?”

  “No, sergeant, I’ve more sense than to gamble wit
h you.”

  Chapter Five

  Detective Inspector Fintan O’Rourke stood outside of the Burlington Hotel and pulled his coat around himself. A middle-aged couple – she in a no doubt expensive evening gown and he in the obligatory tux – were hissing venom at each other at that volume that draws more attention than actual shouting would. DI O’Rourke stood to one side, trying to not be noticed noticing.

  “Would you stop showing me up, Dirvla?”

  “Me? Showing you up? That’s rich! How dare you.”

  “Christ, you’re always like this when you’ve had a drink.”

  “Oh, blame it on me, of course. It had nothing to do with you fawning over that hussy like some lovesick teenager. You’re pathetic!”

  “Can we not discuss this here?”

  “We can discuss it in court. If she wants you, she can have you – because I’ve had enough.”

  “Would you . . .”

  Both parties stopped talking as the distinctive bulk of Commissioner Gareth Ferguson strode out the main doors, a pack of Wellington’s cigars already in his hand.

  The man smiled. “Commissioner.”

  He nodded back. “Councillor, leaving so soon?”

  “Ah, the wife’s not feeling well.”

  She nodded along enthusiastically.

  “Sorry to hear that. Safe home, Dirvla.”

  A taxi pulled up. “Thank you, Commissioner.”

  The man held the door open for his wife. “I won’t be long, dear, you take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll see you at home, darling.”

  And with that, she was gone – off to a life of quiet desperation, via a bottle of gin.

  Her husband smiled at Commissioner Ferguson, who was now standing beside O’Rourke, puffing a cigar into life. He considered joining them, but veered off back through the hotel’s front door when the commissioner met his advance with a simple headshake.

  Commissioner Gareth Ferguson was a large and imposing figure of a man. Six foot four with an immense girth, he had the kind of presence normally exuded by heavy artillery. His voice could boom, when so moved, to the point that it could be heard two floors down, and his stare had been known to make grown men cry. The concierge who had been standing behind O’Rourke, to avoid being in the blast zone of the domestic squabble, now noticed he was getting a low-wattage version of the Ferguson stare and scurried away out of earshot.

  The commissioner took a long drag on his cigar and then blew the smoke up into the air. “O’Rourke.”

  “Commissioner.”

  “Did I hear you ran another marathon there recently?”

  “Yes, thank you, sir.”

  “Nothing in that statement was a compliment.” Ferguson gave O’Rourke the kind of look that made him feel like the last sausage at the butcher’s. “D’ye know,” continued Ferguson, “many would consider me a powerful man. A man who strikes fear into the souls of villains and Gardaí alike as required.”

  O’Rourke shuffled his feet nervously. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think then, it would have an unduly positive effect on the morale of the country’s criminal fraternity if they knew that my sainted wife has banned me from smoking my cigars inside any and all buildings that she is in?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Understand,” said Commissioner Ferguson, “I don’t mean rooms, I mean buildings. This hotel contains probably, what, a thousand people right now? Many of whom are smoking, almost all of whom are drinking – not to mention droning on at one another and, in the case of at least one prominent minister who shall remain nameless, farting their way through a five-course meal like a herd of nervous heifers at an abattoir; and yet, to enjoy one of my few indulgences, I have to step outside. The sheer injustice of it is galling.”

  O’Rourke said nothing, reckoning that he wasn’t required for this part of the conversation.

  Ferguson took another deep drag and blew a couple of smoke rings into the Dublin night sky.

  “Well,” he said, “was it him?”

  “We’re still analysing the crime scene, sir, and taking statements from the . . .”

  O’Rourke noticed that he was now on the end of the Ferguson stare. “Yes, we believe it was Tommy Carter and his crew. The level of sophistication involved – we seriously doubt that anyone else would have the capability.”

  “You’ve been on these bastards for six months, Fintan, and you’d no idea this was coming?”

  O’Rourke took a breath to try and measure his tone. “No, sir, I knew ‘this’ was coming, I just didn’t know exactly what ‘this’ would be. With all due respect, I told you as much two weeks ago. The problem we have is this crew are impossible to crack. Us knowing who they are doesn’t bother them in the least. They are tight, fiercely loyal and they know what they’re doing. Hell, seeing as two of them are ex-Army Rangers, we trained them to know what they’re doing. As if all that wasn’t enough, again, as I told you, the Clanavale Estate is a nightmare. Tommy Carter runs it and we can’t get near—”

  Ferguson raised his hand. “Alright, Fintan, calm down. I appreciate the difficulties. Tell me about the grenade.”

  “They strapped it to the front window of the escort vehicle, sir, with an elasticated band around the car, taking the car completely out of commission and rendering the two officers powerless to do anything. If they tried to get out, lower a window or even shoot through one . . .”

  “We’d have been scraping them up for a week,” finished Ferguson. “Devilishly clever. The chief of staff of the defence forces is inside, I must compliment him on the quality of devious bastards his training is cranking out.”

  “The Quays had to be closed off for three hours while the device was ‘made safe’. Well, that’s what we’re telling the press.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It was a fake, sir. Albeit a very convincing one. The officers couldn’t have known. Carter’s crew has used live explosives in the past. The bomb squad was using the robot on it when . . .”

  Ferguson pulled the cigar from his mouth. “What?”

  “It started laughing, sir. It contained a recording device and—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Fintan!”

  “Sir.”

  “And how come they had a picture of the driver’s bloody child? They’ve clearly got inside help.”

  “Undoubtedly, sir, although we believe the photo was doctored.”

  “What?”

  “We’re still checking, but we believe it was a school photo of the child holding a certificate. They altered it to be today’s newspaper. Any parent is going to—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Ferguson. “You’re not the only one with kids, Fintan.”

  “We think they must have known the work rotas for the drivers. I’ve got my people looking into it and . . .” O’Rourke hesitated. This was the bit that needed to be handled with kid gloves. “About the route, sir.”

  “Ah yes, these so-called ‘randomised’ routes that these vans are on to prevent precisely this. How did they get around that bit? Let me guess – employed a bloody psychic?”

  “Ehm, no, sir. You remember the review of procedures that Deputy Commissioner Geraghty oversaw in the summer?”

  “Yes, yes. I remember the argument the two of you had about the resources, too. You banging the table for more bodies for your investigation team, him for his protection team.”

  “Well, after the job in Tallaght, sir – the one with the fake roadworks – the DC said escort vehicles had to scout the route beforehand to make sure there wasn’t . . .”

  Ferguson turned his eyes to the heavens. “They followed the bloody escort car?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Tracker, sir. The bomb squad found it on the escort vehicle as part of their checks. We’ve already found one on another of our cars and we’re checking the rest.”

  Ferguson petulantly flicked the stub of his cigar into the nearby bushes. “They were tracking our own bloody cars? This is . . . Christ knows wh
at the hell this is, but I’d imagine we’re going to be a laughing stock in the press, that’s for bloody sure. And Fintan, political animal that you are, I’m sure some journo somewhere has already got a whisper of the clash between yourself and the deputy commissioner. I would urge you to remember that there is more than enough damage here to end two promising careers.”

  “This isn’t a turf war for me, sir. I just want to take these bastards down.”

  Ferguson raised an eyebrow. “How noble. Well played. I almost believed you. I don’t suppose there are any silver linings to be found in this cloud of shit?”

  “Actually, sir, there is one. The van. Ordinarily it should’ve held about six hundred grand on that run, but a counting machine broke down at the depot.”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “We’re getting absolute confirmation, but for all their effort, they only got just shy of thirty-eight grand.”

  A grin spread across Ferguson’s face. “Oh me oh my, it seems Mr Carter and his boys are going to be having nearly as bad a night as we are.”

  “Maybe worse, sir. If our intelligence is right, they had big plans for the money. We think they’re now short and they might just be a little desperate. We might finally have an advantage.”

  Commissioner Ferguson pulled up the trousers of his dinner suit and belched loudly. “Well, out with it, Fintan, what do you need?”

  “Less of a what, sir, and more of a who.”

  Chapter Six

  “I’m fecking starving.”

  Gringo continued walking forward but pirouetted nimbly to address the straggling half of the expedition. “For Christ’s sake, Bunny, you’d three packets of roasted peanuts back at O’Hagan’s, how much food do you need?”

  “I’d about a dozen pints too. Them nuts are floating in that much stout, none of them have even hit the sides yet. Can we not stop for a burger?”

  “No, because you’ll never start again. I know what you’re like. You’ll be asleep in Maccy D’s in under five minutes, ye big baby.”

  They were walking alongside St Stephen’s Green, past the couples with their hands out, vainly trying to flag a taxi. As Gringo spoke, one cruised around the corner with its light on. A gangly lad in his early twenties leapt out in front of it, waving his arms with the kind of frenzy that was normally the preserve of the shipwrecked.