‘Tell me about this Romanian.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I told you before. He’ll fecking cremate me alive.’
‘We’re here to protect you, Phelan. But we can’t protect you unless you help us to protect you. If you can tell me how to find him, I can make sure that he never threatens you again – ever. He’s Romanian, so we can have him deported back to Romania, and never allowed back into Ireland again.’
‘He has five gowls that work for him, and they’re going to be looking for me now. He’ll be fecking raging when he finds out that I’m not outside of Tesco. He wants his grade every morning five o’clock sharp.’
‘How much do you have to give him?’
‘Half. He takes it from every rough sleeper in the city centre, every fecking day. And it’s no good trying to give him less because those gowls that work for him, they’ll strip you bollock naked and throw your stuff all over the shop if they think you’re hiding any. One young feen tucked a johnny full of rolled-up twenty-yoyo notes up his arse hoping that they wouldn’t find it, but they did, and after they pulled it out with a pair of pliers they shoved an empty Tanora bottle up there, for a punishment, like.’
‘These fellows who work for him, are they Romanian, too?’
Phelan sipped more whiskey, and nodded.
‘Are you going to tell me his name?’
‘I can’t, I’ve told you. He’ll fecking kill me. And if he doesn’t kill me, then the other ones will.’
‘What “other ones”?’
Phelan dropped his voice so low that Katie could hardly hear him.
‘Them other Romanians. They only showed up last week, like, but ever since they did, there’s three of us lot have snuffed it. Don’t nobody try to spoof me that they froze to death or OD’d or died of old age, because three of them lot took over their pitches, almost as soon as they were carted away.’
‘Stall it a moment. The Romanian you have to give your money to – isn’t that Dragomir Iliescu? Dragos? The fellow they call Lupul?’
‘Loophole? I never heard of nobody called Loophole.’
‘So what’s the name of your Romanian?’
‘What, do you think I’m thick as a ditch, do you? If I rat him out, that’s my one-way ticket to St Catherine’s cemetery, and no fecking two ways about it. You shades couldn’t protect me twenty-four hours a day, could you, and any road I wouldn’t want a razzer in the shitter with me.’
‘All right, but what do you know about these other Romanians? How many do you think there are?’
Phelan said, ‘Ssh! Be whist, would you? There’s at least seven or eight of the feckers in here and they’re not all bombed out of their brains even if they act like it. Why do you think I’m not telling you nothing? Not that I know nothing – not about them, any road.’
‘Fair play to you, Phelan, if that’s the way you want it,’ said Katie, and stood up.
Her mind was racing. Phelan might have refused to give her any names, but he had told her something of critical importance, even if he had done it unwittingly. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t found out about it before today, and neither had any of the gardaí on street patrols. It made her feel both unprofessional and uncaring, as if the Garda hadn’t considered that it was worth paying attention to the homeless except when they obstructed doorways or left rubbish strewn in the streets.
Even though she had no witnesses or incriminating evidence, Lupul had to be her number one suspect for the drilling murders. He had turned up in Cork with his ring of Romanian beggars and he had set to work almost at once to commandeer all the most profitable locations, like the Savoy Centre and Cook Street and the doorway in front of Moderne. But what Katie hadn’t known was that almost all of the existing beggars were already being forced by another Romanian ringmaster to hand over half of the money that they collected every day. This was before Lupul had even arrived, and this ringmaster clearly resented Lupul’s bid to take over the streets.
Of course she was aware that the homeless were desperately vulnerable. Some of them were beaten up by drunks or randomly robbed by drug addicts and by other beggars while they slept in shop doorways, stupefied by alcohol or spice. Up until now, though, she hadn’t picked up even a whisper that they were being systematically fleeced by an organized Romanian ring, and this could have been going on for months, if not years. Katie guessed that if this ringmaster was taking only half of their donations, he had obviously worked out how much they needed to feed themselves and pay for any drink or drugs, and this must have helped to keep them quiet. What she found grimly impressive was how he had managed to keep them all so silent for so long. Even a hardened beggar like Phelan was terrified of being beaten or killed if he refused to hand over his share, or if he complained to the Garda that he was being threatened, so what chance did a harmless alcoholic like Gearoid stand, or a sick crack addict like Matty?
‘Well – did you catch that?’ Katie asked Detective O’Donovan, as they continued to make their way between the screens.
‘Most of it, yes. Un-fecking-believable.’
‘How in the name of all that’s holy did we not know, Patrick?’
‘Don’t ask me. But you have to be realistic, like, don’t you? If people are too jibber to tell us then we’re not going to know, are we?’
‘But it’s our job to know. It’s my job to know. Mother of God.’
‘Come on, ma’am, this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. What about all those young Somali girls we found last week in that brothel on Grafton Street? They’d been here for nigh on six months, hadn’t they, but if Ronan hadn’t earwigged that fellow boasting about them in The Ovens Bar, we’d never have known about them.’
‘Oh, great. That makes me feel no better at all, I’m sorry to say. But how about this Romanian ringmaster who’s been fleecing these poor beggars all this time – the one that Phelan’s too frightened to put a name to. Are you thinking who I’m thinking?’
‘I’d say so. It’s almost sure to be the Fat Fellow, isn’t it? I mean, who else?’
‘Ştefan Făt-Frumor? Absolutely. That was the first name that came to my mind, too. But you were so sure, weren’t you, that he was winding down most of his rackets here in Cork and moving above to Dublin?’
‘I was, yes. I have to put my hands up to that. What a cute hoor, he totally convinced me. But I can’t think of any other Romanian who’s scary enough to make so many people keep their bake shut for so long. There’s that Florin Cojoc fellow in Gurra – the one we lifted for selling monkey dust. He’s pure violent, but only because he’s off his head most of the time. He couldn’t organize a ring on a doorbell, leave alone a begging ring.’
‘I agree with you, Patrick,’ said Katie. ‘Unless it’s some Romanian we’ve never heard of, it’s almost sure to be Ştefan Făt-Frumor. And if those rough sleepers who were drilled to death were all making money for him, that would have given him more than enough of a motive for burning down Lupul’s house in Alexandra Road, wouldn’t you think? On top of which, there was your barman from The Parting Glass, what was his name?’
‘Vasile.’
‘Yes, Vasile. It’s almost certain that Lupul had him killed because he tipped us off that he was staying at Sidney Park – and Vasile was Făt-Frumor’s friend, or a contact at least.’
As they pushed their way through the lines of tarpaulin screens, Detective O’Donovan peered into one of the cubicles, where a scruffy grey-haired man with bags under his eyes was sitting cross-legged on his mattress solemnly munching his way through his entire packet of Kimberley biscuits. The man had no front teeth so he was spraying crumbs all over his corduroy trousers.
‘If only one of these poor streals stopped hounding biscuits and made a complaint against the Fat Fellow by name, we’d be laughing,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘Or not looking so duairc, anyway. Jesus.’
Katie continued to make her way along the row of cubicles until she came to a young woman lying on her mattr
ess with earphones in her ears, listening to a cheap DVD player stuck together with brown parcel tape. She was nodding her head and mouthing the words of whatever song she was playing.
She had small feline eyes and wavy black shoulder-length hair and from the thick grey cable-knit sweater she was wearing, Katie was sure that she was Romanian. She gave the young woman a smile and said, ‘All right if I come in and have a word with you?’
The young woman took out her earphones and sat up, tossing back her hair. She was quite pretty, even though her hair was dry and badly needed cutting and her eyebrows needed plucking. Katie guessed that she was about twenty-one or twenty-two years old.
‘How’s it going?’ she said. ‘My name’s Kathleen and I’m a police officer, but I have to tell you straight away that you’re not in any kind of trouble.’
‘I am worry,’ the young woman replied. ‘This place is warm and food is good but I should not be here. I have to go back to street.’
A card was propped up against her bedside lamp. Katie picked it up and saw that it read, ‘Elenuta Moraru, outside P. Cashell, Winthrop Street,’ with the time and the date when the young woman had been picked up.
‘Elenuta? That’s a lovely name, Elenuta.’
‘If I am not in trouble, is it all right for me to go? I have to go back to street or I make no money.’
‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that, Elenuta. Like I say, you’re not in any trouble yourself, but the man who fetched you here from Romania, he’s in deep trouble. It’s against the law to organize gangs of people like yourself to beg for money in the streets.’
Elenuta bit her lip. ‘But if I do not go back, he will – I do not know words – el mă va răni mult.’ To explain what she meant, she pretended to slap herself across the face.
‘He’ll hurt you?’ said Katie.
‘Yes, hurt me. Hurt me bad. One time he breaked two fingers.’
Katie said to Detective O’Donovan, ‘Go and find Murtagh for me, could you? I think we may need some translation here.’ Then she turned back to Elenuta and said, ‘You’re talking about Dragomir Iliescu? Dragos? The man they call Lupul?’
‘I don’t say.’
‘Elenuta, I promise you that Lupul isn’t going to hurt you again. We’re looking for him because he’s wanted on suspicion of serious crimes. He won’t be able to take money from you again. He won’t be able to hit you again. You won’t even have to set eyes on him again, ever.’
Elenuta blinked at her and it was clear that she didn’t fully understand. At that moment, though, Murtagh appeared around the screen and waved his hand and said, ‘Salut! Ce mai faci? Numele meu este Murtagh.’
Detective O’Donovan brought in a folding chair for Katie and Murtagh crouched down next to her. Katie couldn’t help thinking that he looked like a giant frog in his green waxed jacket and his thick-lensed glasses, but she was grateful that he was there. Elenuta was starting to panic, turning her head from side to side as if she were trying to see if there was any way of escaping from this cubicle, and twisting the silver rings on her fingers around and around.
‘You’re safe now, Elenuta,’ Katie reassured her, reaching out and laying a hand on her arm. ‘It is Lupul that you’re afraid of, isn’t it? And did he fetch you here from Târgoviște too? First by plane, and then by ship?’
Elenuta nodded, and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Why did you come here with Lupul? Did he force you to?’
‘My brother Dumitru was always in trouble ever since he was at school and he was in Lupul’s gang. He took some drugs that belonged to Lupul and sold them himself to make some extra money, so that he could buy himself a motorbike. Lupul found out and said that if I didn’t pay back what Dumitru had taken, he would kill him, but he would kill him in such a way that nobody would know that he had done it.’
‘When you came here to Cork, he took you to a big house first, up on a hill? But then he sent you out on the streets to beg for money?’
Elenuta nodded again. ‘He will kill me.’
‘He won’t be able to get anywhere near you, sweetheart, because he’ll be in prison for a very long time. He’ll be an old man by the time he gets out. And that’s if he’s still alive. That big house burned down, did you know that, and they found a man dead inside it. That man could well be Lupul.’
‘I heard there was a fire. Danut told me. I wanted to go back there, because I have my clothes there, and my suitcase. Also my phone and my ID card. But Danut said I had to stay away because everything was burned and – and – poliția este peste tot în casă ca muștele.’
‘“Police are swarming all over the house like flies”,’ Murtagh translated.
‘Danut?’ said Katie. ‘Is that the same Danut they call Sharp Teeth?’
‘Yes. Dinti Ascutiti. But I should not have said his name to you. Please.’
‘Danut won’t be able to hurt you, either, Elenuta. Did Danut come over from Târgoviște with you?’
‘Yes. I hate Danut. He always try to touch me. The other girls too. He stinks. Sometimes he take out his pulă and say look, don’t you want to kiss it? He make me sick.’
‘I don’t think I need that translated, thanks, Murtagh,’ said Katie. Then, to Elenuta, ‘Did Danut tell you if Lupul was caught in the fire? Do you think the man who was found dead in the house could have been him?’
Elenuta shook her head. ‘He say nothing more. Only house is nothing but ashes.’
‘But he expected you to stay there on Winthrop Street, still begging?’
‘Da,’ she said, reverting to Romanian. ‘He said that in spite of fire nothing has changed. He will fix my ID card. He said not to talk about fire, not to anybody. He said he’d be back at same time as usual in evening, nine o’clock, to take my money. But of course I won’t be there. He will be so angry. Furios ca diavolul. That’s why I’m so afraid.’
‘So Danut told you that nothing had changed. Try and remember everything he said. Did he give you the impression that he was running things now? Or that Lupul was still alive and still in business? Did he give you any idea of where he was staying, now that the house on Alexandra Road was burned down?’
‘No. All he said was, he will be back at nine o’clock like usual. I have to be there and I have to have some money to give him. Please. He will send a message to Lupul’s friends in Târgoviște if I’m not there, and my brother will be hurt.’
‘Listen, Elenuta, you mustn’t worry. We’re going to put a stop to all this begging, and the men who run it. Some people from the immigration service will be coming here later this afternoon. They’ll be interviewing all the Romanian nationals like yourself, and they’ll be helping you to sort out your identity card and give you any help you need to get back to Romania.’
‘You will send me back? What about my brother?’
‘You can’t stay here in Ireland, not as a beggar. But we have good contacts with the police in Romania, and we’ll try to make sure that your brother gets protection.’
Elenuta’s eyes filled with tears, and she began to rock backwards and forwards in despair. ‘Este sfârșitul lumii,’ she wept. ‘E sfârșitul tuturor.’
‘She says it’s the end of the world,’ Murtagh translated. ‘It’s the end of everything.’
*
Between them, Katie and her fellow officers spoke to every one of the twenty beggars. Seven of them were Romanian and had been brought over by Lupul. Nine were Irish, three were Polish, and one was Nigerian, a girl called Kisiwa.
Katie promised them all protection and rehabilitation, and that they could stay here at St Dunstan’s church hall until accommodation had been found for them, or arrangements had been made to repatriate them. But although none of the Romanians denied that they were members of Lupul’s begging ring, she couldn’t persuade any of them to accuse him by name – either him or Danut.
The Irish beggars were equally evasive. Katie asked them repeatedly if it was Ştefan Făt-Frumor who was forcing them to ha
nd over half of their donations, but not one of them would say yes. Yet again, she felt ashamed that the Cork Garda hadn’t picked up even an inkling that these beggars had been victims of organized extortion for so long. She was even more ashamed that none of them believed that if they identified their ringmasters, the Garda could guarantee their safety.
All the same, she was confident that she had made a small start at least in winning them over. She was making sure they were being kept warm on one of the coldest days of the year so far, and that they were well-fed, and that nobody was treating them like scum because they were addicted, or alcoholic, or suffering from some psychosis. In a few days, perhaps, they might trust her enough to name some names.
Before she left, she returned to Elenuta’s cubicle.
‘How’re you going on?’ she asked her.
‘Will you let me go to meet Danut? I am so worry.’
‘You’re not a prisoner, Elenuta. But I’m seriously advising you not to go. It could make it much more difficult for us to find out where he’s based now, and if Lupul is still alive. Apart from that, it could be fierce dangerous for you. He’s bound to have caught wind by now that we’ve taken all the rough sleepers off the city’s streets, and don’t tell me that he won’t be after asking you why, and where you all are. He may even try to take you with him by force, and that means we’ll have to step in and stop him.’
‘So what can I do?’
‘Tell me what he looks like, this Danut. Then – if he turns up at Winthrop Street at nine o’clock, like he said he would – we can follow him.’
Elenuta hesitated for a moment. Then, without raising her eyes, she said, ‘Short. But big shoulders. Bald head. Always wearing black jacket with jeans. And one earring, silver, this side.’
‘Anything else you can think of?’
‘Yes. Ugly like dog with squash face.’
‘That’s pure descriptive, Elenuta, thanks a million,’ said Katie, although she couldn’t help thinking of Walter.
45
It was six thirty-six p.m. when the call came in from the National Ambulance Control Centre that a woman had fallen on the escalator at Brown Thomas department store on St Patrick’s Street and appeared to be seriously injured.
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