Begging to Die

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Fair play to you, but I’m going to talk to the council about housing you all on a permanent basis,’ said Katie. ‘Also – how we can get you into rehab, and how we can find jobs for you, once you’re clean. As far as protection is concerned, I’m going to discuss with the policing council how you can be better looked after if and when you go back on the street. Meanwhile, you can stay here at St Dunstan’s for as long as you need to.’

  The girl called Elenuta stood up. ‘What about us, from Romania? What about Lupul?’

  The ginger-haired girl wiped her eyes on her sleeves. Katie gave her one more hug and a smile and then let her go.

  ‘I have some good news for you, too,’ she said to Elenuta. ‘Danut is dead. We found out where he was hiding and he took his own life before we could arrest him. So you don’t have to worry about Danut any more.’

  ‘But Lupul? You give to me promise that I would not have to worry about Lupul, too. Lupul is scary one.’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, we’re still not entirely sure if Lupul is alive or dead. But we’re doing everything in our power to find out. So long as you stay here, though, he won’t be able to come near you, even if he is still alive. Did the immigration people come to talk to you?’

  ‘Yes. They are sort out my papers. When they do that, I will go back to Romania. All here from Romania will go back.’

  As they drove down to Anglesea Street, Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick said, ‘That fellow who asked about protection had a point, like. I can’t see the council having the funds to find accommodation for all of those rough sleepers, can you? And some of them would rather be out on the streets than in some shelter. They have to behave themselves in a shelter. But we don’t have the manpower to watch over them every minute of the night, do we? And if that’s how they choose to live, why should we?’

  ‘We can only do what we can, Robert,’ said Katie. ‘But even if somebody’s halfway out of their head on spice or monkey dust and doesn’t want help, we still have to take care of them. It’s our job.’

  *

  She was leaving her office for home when Bill Phinner came along the corridor.

  ‘What’s the story, Bill?’

  ‘You don’t happen to have a cigarette on you, ma’am, do you, by any chance?’

  ‘No. Don’t tell me you’ve taken up smoking again.’

  ‘I haven’t, no, but I wish I had. I’ve tried that vaping but, Jesus. It’s like sucking in some two-year-old’s breath after they’ve been eating rhubarb and custards.’

  ‘Were you coming up here to see me?’

  ‘I was, yes. It’s that Romanian feen who shot his friend in the head and then blew his own face off. We’ve examined the bullets and they match the bullets we retrieved from that boxer fellow, the one who was shot in Crane Lane.’

  ‘So it was the same gun?’

  ‘No question about it.’

  ‘Oh well, that leads me to one of several conclusions. Either it was Danut who shot Bowser, or if it wasn’t, then whoever had that gun before doesn’t have it now. Or – I don’t know. I’m too flah’d out to think straight. How are you coming along with that burned notebook, by the way?’

  ‘Slow but sure. We’ve separated all the pages, like, and now we’re drying them off. If there’s anything written on them, we should be able to see what it is by tomorrow or the day after.’

  ‘Okay, Bill, that’s grand. I’ll see you in the morning so. Try not to give up the struggle. Think of your lungs.’

  ‘I am, ma’am, believe me. Both of them are crying out for a deep inhalation of Johnny Blue smoke, followed by a good phlegmy cough.’

  50

  Conor was quiet again that evening. Katie baked two pepperoni pizzas in the oven because she was too tired to cook anything else, but he ate only one slice of his.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Con?’ she asked him.

  ‘This and that, you know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. What’s “this and that”?’

  ‘I was thinking about the future, that’s all. Our future – you and me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Like I said before… I think you’d be better off without me.’

  Katie put down the slice of pizza that she was about to bite into. ‘That’s for me to judge, wouldn’t you say, not you? And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my work, it’s not to eat your sandwiches before you’ve made them.’

  Conor couldn’t help shaking his head in amusement. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you about bridges, and crossing them before you came to them?’

  ‘No. My gran always said sandwiches.’

  Despite what he had said, Conor held Katie very close in bed that night, even after he had fallen asleep. After she had heard the clock in the living room chime one, Katie had to lever his arm from around her waist and lay it down beside him. He didn’t stir, and although his nose was still bandaged, he was breathing so silently that she had to press her hand against his chest to make sure he wasn’t dead.

  *

  ‘We have to prioritize who we’re going to be looking out for,’ said Superintendent Pearse. ‘Do we look out for the law-abiding people who pay for police protection through their taxes, or the down-and-outs and druggies living off benefits? We can’t always afford to do both. It’s not only a financial head-scratcher, and a logistical one, it’s political. And of course it’s humanitarian, too.’

  It was ten o’clock the next morning. Katie was holding an informal conference with Superintendent Pearse, Inspector O’Rourke and Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick. They were discussing what it would take to improve security for Cork’s rough sleepers once they had left St Dunstan’s church hall. They were having to face up to the fact that even though they had broken up the two Romanian begging rings, this had possibly exposed the city’s rough sleepers to a much greater risk of violence and abuse.

  ‘Forget about the beggars, I badly need more manpower on the northside at night,’ said Inspector O’Rourke. ‘This rash of car-stealing and joyriding and setting fire to cars – well, it’s more than a rash now, it’s an epidemic.’

  ‘I saw your report this morning about that poor woman up in Knocknaheeny,’ said Superintendent Pearse.

  ‘That’s right. She went out to confront a gang of kids who were trying to steal her car, and they chased her back into her own house. She wasn’t hurt, thank God, but she was fierce shaken. These kids think they can rampage around with complete impunity, and the trouble is, they can.’

  ‘Well, like I say, it all comes down to budget cuts. We can’t patrol the streets with officers we haven’t got.’

  Katie’s phone rang. She picked it up and it was Dr Kelley.

  ‘Kathleen? Ah, good. I’ve completed my examination of Ştefan Făt-Frumor. I can tell you straight off that his death was not the result of accident or suicide. Both his wrists were cut but those incisions were inflicted post mortem, so he didn’t kill himself. The direct cause of death was a drill inserted into his brainstem from the back of his neck. An exact copy of the way in which all of those other three victims were drilled to death.’

  ‘Thanks, Mary,’ said Katie. ‘No other injuries?’

  ‘Some bruising on his arms, which would indicate that he was manhandled shortly before his death. His liver was cirrhosed and he was suffering from chronic gout, but nothing else that would have directly contributed to his death.’

  ‘All right. What about that burned body from Alexandra Road? Any progress with identifying him?’

  ‘It hasn’t been at all easy, I’m afraid, because he was almost totally carbonized. Usually we can age victims by their teeth, but all his teeth are false. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that they’re not Irish false teeth. Most likely Eastern European, and reasonably new. They do excellent false teeth in the Czech Republic and Romania, if ever you need them.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Mary, thanks. Listen, I’m in the middle of a meeting but I’ll ring you back later so.’
/>   She put down the phone and all three officers could immediately see that she had been told something significant.

  ‘It’s Ştefan Făt-Frumor,’ she said. ‘He was killed by a drill, just like those two rough sleepers and the barman from The Parting Glass.’

  ‘Maybe that Lupul is still alive,’ said Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick. ‘Like, who would have a greater incentive to do away with the Fat Fellow than him? And who else uses that MO? We still haven’t announced how any of those rough sleepers were killed, so it’s a million to one that anybody else would think of using a drill.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Katie. ‘And Dr Kelley hasn’t yet been able to identify the body from Alexandra Road so I think we have to assume for the time being that it isn’t Lupul. We need to step up our search for him, and in the meantime we should start building up a case against him, so that we can charge him immediately when we haul him in – if he’s still alive, that is, and we do.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick.

  ‘I want to interview Eamon Buckley again, because that ring didn’t get mixed up in his mince by magic. Also, I have that trainer that I found under the bed in Lupul’s house in Sidney Park, as well as the necklace that was found in Crane Lane after Bowser was shot. Young Ana-Maria should have recovered enough by now to confirm that they belonged to her ma.’

  Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick said, ‘We’re still going door to door around Orchard Court to see if we can find any witnesses to the Fat Fellow leaving his house. No luck so far. His wife swears he simply walked out of the front door without saying where he was going. He was wearing only a torn vest and trackies when his body was found. It was minus two that night so don’t tell me he went off for a hod with no overcoat and only slippers on his feet.’

  ‘Sure somebody must have seen him, especially if he was abducted,’ said Superintendent Pearse. ‘I can’t believe that he would have gone quiet-like.’

  ‘They probably did,’ said Katie. ‘So why aren’t they telling us? What are they afraid of? Or rather, who are they afraid of?’

  *

  She rang Margaret O’Reilly at Tusla first of all, to ask her if she had any objection to her going to the Flynns’ house in Glanmire and asking Ana-Maria to identify her mother’s necklace and trainer.

  Margaret, in her whispery windblown voice, said that would be no problem at all. Ana-Maria had settled in well with Michael and Sadhbh, which was a relief, because the Romanian authorities still hadn’t been able to trace her father, or any other relatives.

  Katie took the pink-and-white-striped trainer that she had found under the bed in Sidney Park, and the necklace with the image of Saint Philothea of Argeș. She had arranged to meet Murtagh at the Flynns’ house so that he could translate for her. She had thought of asking Kyna to come with her, too, but then she remembered how shy Ana-Maria had been. She needed the child to tell her as much as possible about her missing mother, and she didn’t want her to be put off by the presence of a stranger, no matter how pretty and sympathetic that stranger might be.

  She drove up by the curving Glashaboy River to Glanmire village. It was a bright and sunny afternoon, but freezing, so that the trees and bushes alongside the river were sparkling white. As she drove, she couldn’t stop thinking about Conor. This morning he had been even more distant, although he had held her in his arms for a long time before she had left – not kissing her, just holding her, as if he were afraid of falling.

  The Flynns lived at the top of Cúl Na Gréine, a hilly cul-de-sac of large white detached houses with grey slate roofs. A navy-blue Range Rover was parked on the sloping driveway outside. Katie parked behind it and climbed out, and as she did so, Ana-Maria appeared around the corner of the house, on a bicycle with stabilizers. She was wearing a red duffel coat and gloves and fur-lined boots.

  ‘Mătușă!’ she cried out, scrambling off her bicycle and running towards Katie with her arms out.

  Katie picked her up and kissed her. Her cheeks were as red as her coat, and her nose was cold.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ said Katie. ‘It looks like the Flynns are taking real good care of you.’

  Ana-Maria frowned, concentrating hard, and then she said, very carefully, ‘Hal-lo. I am happy to meet you.’

  ‘Oh, and they’re teaching you English, too! That’s brilliant! Listen, sweetheart, I’ll just go and have a word with Michael and Sadhbh and then maybe you can come in and you and we can have a bit of a chat, like. Murtagh will be here soon. You remember Murtagh? He’ll be able to translate for us.’

  Ana-Maria nodded and Katie put her down. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, you don’t understand a word I’m saying.’

  ‘Mătușă, n-ai găsit-o încă pe mumia mea?’

  Katie could guess what that meant, and she sadly shook her head. ‘No, we don’t know what happened to your ma, not yet. But we will, I promise you.’

  The front door of the house had opened and Sadhbh Flynn was standing waiting for her. Katie said, ‘See you in a minute, sweetheart,’ and went up the steps to the porch.

  Sadhbh was an attractive woman in her early forties, with dark bouncy hair. She was wearing a maroon cardigan and a long tweed skirt and she put Katie in mind of those ideal American housewives on 1950s’ magazine covers, like Saturday Evening Post.

  ‘Come along in,’ said Sadhbh. ‘Here, let’s go through to the living room. How about a cup of tea in your hand? It’s so cold today! What should I call you?’

  ‘Kathleen would be fine,’ said Katie. ‘Is your husband not here today?’

  ‘He’s out for his daily run. He does it every single day, no matter what the weather. All the way up to the Old Christians Rugby Football Club and then back by way of John O’Callaghan Park. He says it helps to clear his mind for all the IT stuff he does. Myself, I couldn’t make head nor tail of that IT stuff anyway, even if I ran all the way to Fermoy and back.’

  ‘How’s Ana-Maria coming along?’ Katie asked her. ‘Like I told you on the phone, I’ve a trainer and a necklace that we believe belong to her mother. I don’t want to distress her but I need to know for sure if they’re hers.’

  ‘She has her moments. Night-times are the worst. She has desperate bad dreams. I gave her a ginger cookie yesterday in the kitchen and she burst into tears. I can only guess that it reminded her of her ma.’

  Katie followed her into the kitchen while she filled the kettle to make tea. They were still talking when they heard Ana-Maria scream outside on the driveway. Almost immediately afterwards, someone hammered on the front door with their fist.

  Katie hurried to the front door and flung it open. Lupul was standing in the porch, with his left arm crooked around Ana-Maria’s neck. In his right hand he was holding his cordless drill, with the drill bit pointing at the top of her head.

  Two bulky men in black windcheaters were standing by the wall at the top of the driveway, their arms folded. A dark grey Volvo saloon was waiting in the road with its doors open and its engine running.

  ‘What in the name of God do you think you’re playing at?’ Katie demanded. ‘That young girl has done nothing to you at all. You let her go.’

  ‘This young girl is start of all my trouble. Now my trouble end here.’

  ‘I said let her go. Look at her, she’s terrified.’

  ‘You have gun?’

  Katie took a deep breath. Then she said, ‘No,’ and she unbuttoned her jacket to show him that she wasn’t carrying her Smith & Wesson revolver. It was unusual for her not to be armed, but she hadn’t wanted to unsettle Ana-Maria by wearing a pistol.

  ‘Give me phone,’ said Lupul.

  Katie took out her iPhone and held it out. Lupul whistled sharply between his teeth and called out, ‘Aleks!’ One of the men in black windcheaters came strolling down the driveway and snatched the phone away from her, dropping it into his pocket. Katie gave him a long, intense stare, to show him that she wouldn’t forget what he lo
oked like, when it came to him being arrested and standing in front of her in court.

  ‘Now you come with me, police detective woman,’ said Lupul. ‘And you—’ to Sadhbh ‘—we see police follow us, this little girl gets brrrrrrrrrrrr!’ and he mimicked drilling into Ana-Maria’s skull. ‘Any police – car, motorcycle, helicopter – any. Brrrrrrrrrr!’

  Lupul dragged Ana-Maria up the driveway, still holding the drill to her head. The man called Aleks took hold of Katie’s arm and said, ‘Come.’

  Katie turned around to Sadhbh and whispered urgently, ‘Call them. Tell them it’s Lupul. But they must keep their distance.’

  ‘What?’ said Sadhbh.

  ‘Lupul!’

  ‘You come!’ Aleks barked, and yanked Katie up the driveway by the sleeve of her jacket. She was proficient enough at karate to have knocked him flat, but she was sure that Lupul was cold-blooded enough to kill Ana-Maria on the spot, and so she allowed herself to be jostled up to the Volvo and pushed into the back seat. Ana-Maria was sitting in the middle, with Lupul next to her. Ana-Maria was shivering, so Katie took hold of her hand.

  ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ she said, soothingly. ‘Everything’s going to be fine. I won’t let these men hurt you.’

  ‘You shut up face,’ said Lupul. ‘You know nothing. All my trouble start with this girl.’

  ‘Let me tell you this, sham,’ Katie retorted. ‘If you so much as scratch either of us, you’re going to be spending so long in prison you’ll forget what the world looks like without bars in front of it.’

  ‘And I say this to you, police detective woman. You do like I say, exact, or nobody will ever know what happen to you. Ever. You will be gone. Pfff! Like never born.’

  As they reached the end of Cúl Na Gréine, Katie saw Murtagh in his Honda turning into the cul-de-sac from Church Hill. She opened her mouth wide, silently shouting, hoping that he would see her in the back of the Volvo. He slowed right down, but he didn’t look in her direction and then he carried on driving up the hill towards the Flynn house, oblivious.