“Certainly sounds it.”
“Then Jacobs went and ruined a good thing by going off and dying. Inconsiderate arse. Had the wrong kind of stroke in a swimming pool, apparently. Now we have a new sawbones.” Ferguson’s eyes narrowed and his tone dropped to a low growl. “Dr Mansfield.”
Kevin began to whine, sensing the dip in the conversational temperature.
“Fresh-faced, charming girl, doesn’t drink or smoke. Also, takes what I consider to be an unhealthy interest in the health of her patients. Last month she gave me my annual medical and failed me. I thought the only way you could fail a medical was by being dead. Worse than that, she sent the results home, where my beloved opens all of the post.”
“I’m sorry to hear you’re not well,” said O’Rourke.
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t you start. When, as a species, did we become so obsessed with living for ever? Jesus only lived to thirty-three, and back in those days, that was a pretty good innings. Nowadays, we’re all obsessed with coffin-dodging until the end of time. Personally, I’m a big believer that when your time is up, you should shuffle neatly out of the way and not cause a fuss. I made the mistake of expressing this opinion in the presence of both my wife and doctor, and I’ve now had to give up having opinions as well.
“My beloved, despite all the evidence to the contrary, has expressed how much she wants me to live a long and happy life. Well, at least a long one. I can only imagine the woman does not wish to experience dating in the twenty-first century. That’s why she has made it her mission to render me immortal, whether I like it or not. I’ve been forced to give up everything. I can no longer smoke a cigar, I can’t drink – never mind whiskey or port, I can’t even have a glass of wine. I mean, wine, for God’s sake – the French give wine to children! I have also been betrayed.”
Ferguson glared in the direction of each of his close protection officers in turn. O’Rourke immediately recognised the facial expressions of two men caught between the rockiest of rocks and the hardest of hard places.
“My detail – who, as far as I am aware, are still members of the Garda Síochána, the organisation which I allegedly run – has agreed with my wife to no longer assist me in the acquisition of what I consider to be necessary provisions. Let’s call it what it is – treason! My personal assistant, who I have long suspected of being engaged in espionage at my wife’s behest, is now similarly in open revolt. In the last fortnight there has not been a single biscuit at any meeting I have attended. The biccies were the only reason I was willing to go to most of those godforsaken bore-fests in the first place. My existence has become an unbearable trudge towards immortality, a path I must apparently travel in the company of Kevin the Labra-fucking-doodle, as it was felt a dog would motivate me to take more exercise.”
As if on cue, Kevin jumped up on O’Rourke and grabbed his leg firmly between his paws.
Ferguson tugged the pup away. “For Christ’s sake, Kevin! What have we said about humping in public? If I wanted an animal that did that, I’d have offered to adopt the Minister for Foreign Affairs’ son, the randy little bugger.” O’Rourke disengaged himself and moved slightly further away. The dog had a surprisingly strong grip.
“Anyway,” said Ferguson, “I hear Coop Hannity is dead, the lucky bastard.”
And there, thought O’Rourke, endeth what could be referred to as the “small talk” section of the meeting.
“Yes. It happened last night. We’ve been working the scene all morning. Canvassing the neighbourhood and conducting a search for the murder weapon, as none is present at the scene.”
“Thank you for the explanation of how an investigation works. I particularly appreciate you putting it in simple terms as I’ve seemingly won a competition to meet a police officer. I do hope you’ll let me have a go on the siren later.”
O’Rourke tried to smile. Ferguson could be a challenge to deal with at the best of times, and it was alarmingly clear that these were not those times. He decided to keep moving forward as the odds on his boss’s mood improving were not great, given that O’Rourke didn’t have a packet of Hobnobs about his person.
“The good news is, it appears we have stumbled upon quite the treasure trove. There’s a bunker beneath the back garden of Hannity’s gaudy castle, which contains hundreds of video tapes. It seems he’s been surreptitiously recording many of his meetings, stretching back to at least 1989, if the labels are to be believed.”
A smile attempted to dawn across Ferguson’s face, but it couldn’t quite break through the perma-scowl.
“Really? Well, well, well. I would imagine there will be many hours of interesting viewing in that little collection.”
“Yes, I’m sure there will be. I’ll be having a chat with our friends at the office of the DPP later on, as I’d imagine there will be some legal issues accessing it.”
“Speaking of which, I feel obliged to ask – although he is no great loss to mankind – do we know who introduced Mr Hannity to the choir eternal?”
“Not as yet. We do have CCTV of a man wearing a balaclava, entering the property and exiting it seven minutes later – a short time after 9pm. Coop’s bodyguard was knocked unconscious with a fire extinguisher, and the man himself was stabbed from behind, numerous times, with a large blade, while feeding his pigeons.”
“Ah, the bloody pigeons. So, you have to figure out who killed one of the most unpopular men on the planet? I have every confidence in your abilities, Fintan. Haven’t there been attempts on his life previously?”
“Yes, sir. A Mrs Rita Marsh was done for attempted murder in 1992—”
“Christ. Yes. I remember that. What a fucking mess. And the other time?”
“The brothers Fairchild – two low-end car dealers from Skerries – got involved in a messy deal with Coop. There were reports of a gunshot outside his office, but Hannity didn’t cooperate with the investigation. Oisín, the younger Fairchild, was found burned to a crisp in an oil drum a week later.”
“And the other one?”
“Cian. Location unknown. Best guess is he’s dead too, or running for his life.”
Ferguson arched his back to stretch it and farted unapologetically. “What a bloody mess. Let’s hope his video collection is going to be incredibly useful to your investigation.”
“Yes, I believe it will be. Although, unfortunately, it appears our murderer was aware of it – they had the presence of mind to remove the tape from last night. It would have made things considerably easier. It’s possible a couple of other tapes have gone along with it.”
“Do we know exactly which ones?”
“We’re looking into that. Hannity had a secretary whose job apparently included maintaining his little library. We’re trying to interview her, although she’s lawyered up and is being less than helpful.”
Ferguson nodded. “I’d imagine she will continue to be so, until you can get our friends from the DPP to give her immunity.”
“Yes. That will form a large part of the chat that I’ll be having after I leave here.”
“Lovely. Who discovered the body?”
“The wife.”
The Commissioner raised an eyebrow and O’Rourke shook his head, aware of where his boss was going – the people who discover bodies being well-known suppliers of them in the first place.
“She went to visit her father at his care facility last night, before having a drink with a friend. We’re checking, but Cedarwood have already confirmed that she visited her old man between 8:15pm and 9:26pm last night.”
“Shame,” said Ferguson. “I wish more wives would kill their husbands. Mariticide is so neat and tidy, and everyone is happy to assume the bastard had it coming. Does wonders for the crime stats.” He glanced at his protection detail before lowering his voice slightly. “And now that you’ve danced me around the floor a couple of times like the perfect gentleman you aren’t, can we please get to the part where you try to grab my boob?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
/>
“You are in the early stages of a significant and challenging investigation, Detective Inspector. Everything you have so far updated me on you could have covered in a five-minute phone call that would not have been anything more than a courtesy. The reason you requested a meeting is that you felt moved to come and ruin my already-ruined day in person. So, please do get to the point, because if it is as bad as I think it might be, judging by your facial expression, I’d rather keel over from the heart attack here than have to walk all the way back to the office and do it there.”
Annoyingly, the man was, yet again, absolutely right.
“There’s also a CCTV camera on the front of the Hannity property. We recovered footage from the night before last of Detective Bernard ‘Bunny’ McGarry paying the house a visit.” O’Rourke elected to neglect to mention the theft of the gnome – the Commissioner’s face was already an alarming shade of red.
Ferguson turned around and started walking in the opposite direction, back towards Garda HQ. “Am I to take it that this is the same Bunny McGarry whom we have recently discussed promoting to the rank of detective sergeant and having the President herself pin a medal on his chest?”
“Yes.”
“Good. If I were to find out this force has two individuals with the nickname of Bunny, I’d start to feel as if I were running a petting zoo.” Ferguson came to a stop and gave O’Rourke a penetrating stare. “And the rest?”
“Sir?”
“You have the look, Fintan, of a man who is waiting for his other bollock to drop. Stop waiting for a better time – I assure you there will not be one. You have a theory as to what McGarry was doing there. Given that you have yet to share it with me, I can only assume that it will not be good news either.”
O’Rourke hesitated.
“Just spit it out, there’s a good boy.”
“Two days ago I got a call from Clontarf Garda Station. McGarry had been involved in an altercation with two men – muscle in the employment of Coop Hannity. The incident took place at an address that belonged to DS Tim Spain and is now occupied by his mother.”
“And there we have it. I seem to recall you assuring me that DS Spain’s financial difficulties had all been resolved?”
“I was under the impression they had been, sir.”
“Well, it appears – not unlike that talentless hack somebody hired for last year’s Christmas party – your impression was wrong. What exactly did McGarry tell you?”
“Nothing. He’s even more concerned about protecting DS Spain’s reputation than we are, sir.”
“So, just to make sure I have this completely clear in my head, what you are telling me is that one officer, whom we are about to hold up as a hero, may have been involved in the murder of Coop Hannity, in an effort to protect the reputation of another officer, now deceased, whom we have already been lauding in the press as a paragon of virtue the whole country can be proud of?”
O’Rourke paused before nodding. “I should point out that we’re still in the very early stages of the investigation.”
“But am I correct in my assumption that you believe the video tape of McGarry’s meeting with Hannity to be one of those taken by the murderer?”
“We haven’t yet located it, but that doesn’t …” O’Rourke decided to stop digging the hole. “I agree it sounds bad.”
Ferguson laughed humourlessly. “It sounds bad? Good God, Fintan. If this is the end of your policing career, you really must consider moving into the real-estate business. It’s like referring to Pompeii as a bit of a fixer-upper. This is an unmitigated fucking disaster.”
“Again, sir, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Hannity was rumoured to be money laundering. For all we know, this could be the start of a gang war.”
“And you have to wonder how fucked up things are that we’re hoping something is a gang war now.” Ferguson moved off at such a surprising pace that O’Rourke needed to hurry to catch up with him. His boss was mumbling beneath his breath, dragging the witless Kevin in his wake. All of a sudden he stopped and turned sharply. So sharply that O’Rourke very nearly ran into him.
The Commissioner jabbed a chubby finger in O’Rourke’s face. “Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Detective Inspector. Both you and I know that there was something deeply fishy about the deaths of DSs Spain, Cunningham and O’Shea. The planets aligned in such a way that they could die heroes and the force could take a massive victory from a sticky situation. A large part of that was because McGarry’s version of events tallied so well with that narrative. However, any suggestion that McGarry or Spain is not the clean-living paragon of virtue that we have been extolling, and people might start asking questions that do not have good answers. More importantly, you are currently leading a murder investigation and one of your main suspects is on sabbatical from your team.”
“I’m aware it looks bad,” O’Rourke repeated.
“No, Fintan. It is bad. At the risk of getting an answer I don’t want … As someone who knows McGarry, do you think he could have done this?”
O’Rourke licked his lips. He’d been running that question backwards and forwards in his mind all morning. “That is not a simple question.”
“And that is not a good answer.”
“Is Bunny McGarry capable of murder? Probably. Most of us are, given the right circumstances.”
“And is trying to protect his former partner’s reputation the right circumstances?”
O’Rourke shrugged. “Here’s the thing, Commissioner: I think Bunny might be capable of just about anything. But still … I don’t think he did this.”
“And why is that?”
“Hannity was stabbed in the back. McGarry is many things – chief among them is painfully direct. He’s not the sneaking-up-behind-you sort.”
Ferguson rolled his eyes. “Well, let’s hope that if this comes to trial, he has better character witnesses lined up than you. So, you think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
O’Rourke nodded.
“Here’s the problem. There are certain lines you do not cross. When it comes to Spain, Cunningham and O’Shea, we’ve all decided that it’s for the greater good not to ask certain questions. Justice was done, even if some of the surrounding circumstances stink like French cheese.” Ferguson closed his eyes momentarily and spoke to the sky as if offering up a desperate prayer. “Cheese. God, how I miss cheese.”
He opened his eyes and continued as if nothing had happened. “But now, this is something different. This is what sets us apart from the criminals. We need to make sure this thing is investigated to within an inch of its life. No stone will be left unturned. Nobody, especially a defence lawyer at a later trial, could dare to suggest that the Garda Síochána failed to do everything in its power to bring the guilty to justice. You, Fintan, will step down from being in charge of this investigation immediately.”
“Who’ll take over?”
“An excellent question. And one with a simple answer. You see, in these circumstances, what we need is a bastard. An utter bastard. The kind of bastard who would turn in his granny for nicking sweeties. One who would happily walk over the flaming corpses of his brothers and sisters in uniform to get a result.”
“You don’t mean …”
Ferguson grimaced and patted himself down instinctively, in search of a cigar he did not have. “I do. Our friend from Limerick. A man who would lose a popularity contest against syphilis but who nobody – nobody – is going to suggest is a team player.”
“I feel obliged to point out, sir, that I’m fairly sure McGarry and that individual have a bit of history.”
“How so?”
“I’d rather not say, sir.”
“And I’d rather not have a lunch featuring tofu sitting on my desk and waiting for my return. To quote the bard, life is shit. Now, what history?”
“I believe McGarry pantsed him, sir.”
Ferguson looked genuinely flummoxed. “I’m sorry, he what?”
<
br /> “He pulled down his pants.”
“When?”
“On the day they both graduated from Templemore. At least, that’s the story I heard.”
Ferguson shook his head and looked at the ground. “I can’t believe I give some of these people access to firearms. It’s like being the class prefect in Porky’s fucking Revenge.”
“Gladstone, over in Galway, is an excellent—”
“No,” said Ferguson. “It will be our friend from Limerick. He and McGarry not getting on is perfect. Let’s give the man his chance at sweet vengeance, because make no mistake about it, McGarry’s own pants are down and his bollocks, my friend, are blowing in the wind.”
Alcopops
Bunny awoke to a pounding noise. No, that wasn’t right – two pounding noises. One appeared to be in his head, but the other was coming from an external source. They were infuriatingly out of sync with each other, as if the outside world and his hangover were conspiring against him, possibly in an attempt to produce prog rock.
He looked around. It appeared that at some point in the night he had tried to get himself to bed, but not managed to make it all the way. He had fallen asleep on his own staircase. Various parts of his body were making known their objections to this state of affairs, but at that point in time the excruciating pounding in his head was filibustering for all of his attention. It was as if someone was trying to drill through his skull in the hope of striking oil.
The second noise resumed, and increased in tempo. He could see the front door visibly shaking under the assault.
“Alright, alright, alright, I’m coming. Keep your bollocks on.”
He made the mistake of running his tongue around his mouth and had to pause for a second, fearful he was about to throw up. The disgusting taste was unlike anything he had ever experienced, akin to losing a bet and having to eat a urinal cake. As he reached the bottom step, he tripped over his own discarded trousers and stumbled to the door, before opening it to reveal Detective Pamela Cassidy. His colleague and friend was standing on the doorstep, looking highly agitated.
Dead Man's Sins Page 10