The Tribes

by Catriona King

Andy cheered up, remembering something. “We had a hit on the victim’s I.D. Just before you came in. Matias Rey. Address in west Belfast.”

  “You heard what Ash just said about the race-course.”

  The D.C.I. nodded. “Our dead man must have been into betting.”

  “He had something to do with gambling at least. OK, west Belfast.”

  “Yes. I was going to take Kyle with me.”

  Craig glanced at the door as if he expected Kyle Spence to be standing there. “Has he arrived? Nobody told me.”

  “No, but I was going to take him when he did.”

  Craig glanced at the clock. Where was Spence? If this was Roy Barrett in Intelligence playing games then he’d be playing the drums on his head.

  He stood up decisively.

  “I’ll get Nicky to chase up Inspector Spence; he may be in Human Resources signing forms. Meanwhile, you get on with the CCTV. When the two of you head to west Belfast, take some uniforms with you; we’re not the most popular sight in that neck of the woods. Call at the lab on your way back and check the forensics, please. You’ll probably have one of Rey’s relatives with you, so you can make his I.D. as well.” He yanked open the door. “Then back here and on the CCTV again for the rest of the afternoon. We need to place Miskimmon at that airport. Kyle can work with Ash on other things for a few hours.” He waved the D.C.I. out briskly. “Nicky, I’m off to see Geoff Hamill now. Then I’ll be at High Street with Liam. Chase Inspector Spence, please, and tell him to get his ass up here ASAP.”

  ****

  10. 30 a.m.

  While Craig was running down five flights of stairs to see Geoff Hamill, Liam was busy extracting information from every snout he’d ever had, and thirty odd years as a cop in Belfast meant that he had quite a few. None of them went by the names their parents had gifted them, as if nicknames were de rigeur in the underworld, their legal names only reappearing when they landed in a cell.

  Dodgy, Fixer and Crunch were just three of his sources and every one of them was as thick as a plank. The mechanicals in a Midsummer Night’s Dream reimaged through a dark lens, and without one iota of their charm.

  The conversations so far had yielded slim pickings. A possible sighting of someone being tipped into a car boot on Tuesday evening, and a ‘maybe I heered a shot on the Ormeau road last night’, all disappearing like the morning mist once Liam had mentioned there was no cash to be had. But at least none of his snouts had run or hung up on him, not until his last one, Roller Brant, so called because he had a stomach like a barrel and the local sport after a night at the boozer was to roll him down the nearest available hill.

  Roller was usually an affable sort. Not normally given to violence, unless you called mouthing off at the bouncers when they barred him from his favourite pub violent, or thought shouting ‘Fuck you. Stand still till I clock you one’ while wildly flailing his arms in the air, constituted a threat, but his response to Liam’s ‘who’s behind today’s attacks?’ had resulted in the detective receiving a punch in the face and Roller barrelling away at a heck of a pace.

  A few long strides and Liam had caught up, counting to ten through gritted teeth to stop him returning the punch in kind. Instead he grabbed his unlikely assailant by his protruding ears and threw him over the bonnet of his Ford, then he counted to ten again, out loud this time. When he thought he could finally trust himself not to do serious damage he asked “what the hell did you punch me for?” and slipped the cuffs around Brant’s blancmange-like wrists.

  “Ye asked me what yuh shudn’t huv.”

  The answer cheered Liam up; it meant that Brant knew something. What cheered him up far less was the sight of the good linen hankie Danni had given him that morning covered in his bright red blood. He shoved his prisoner in the back seat less than gently and recited his rights through a blocked nose. By the time they’d reached High Street and Roller was sitting in a cell, the D.C.I. had partially recovered his good humour, courtesy of the leftovers of Jack Harris’s birthday curry and a slice of additive laden cake. He was just heading back for a second slice when Annette, Jake and Rhonda entered the room. Annette’s eyes widened.

  “What happened to your face?”

  Her expression was halfway between concerned and amused.

  “A snout that needed persuading.”

  She shrugged. “In a cell now, I presume?”

  Jake’s question was nearer the point. “Still in one piece?” He wouldn’t have fancied his own chances against Liam.

  Liam smiled ominously. “For now.” He waved a hand at Jack’s cake with largesse. “Have some cake.”

  Harris was not amused. “Don’t you bother your backsides! I’m taking it home.” He shot Liam a caustic look. “I only gave you some ’cos I felt sorry for you.”

  Annette said what Jake had been thinking. “Thanks anyway, Jack, but cake at this time of the morning… I don’t fancy diabetes just yet.”

  They poured some drinks instead and took a seat. Liam nodded towards the door.

  “You’ve been in with Purvis, then?”

  Jake answered for the two of them. His expression said everything before his words emerged. “It was nothing but ‘Mitchell Purvis, farm manager’ for a solid hour. He must have been in the army.”

  A glance at Annette confirmed that it was true. Liam shrugged.

  “The boss says you’re to make a start on the merry widow and he and I’ll have another go at Purvis once he arrives.”

  Annette shook her head decisively and tapped her watch. “We’re having a go at no-one else until I’ve had a cooked breakfast.” She stared down at her abdomen. “This baby needs fuel, and its mother definitely does.”

  Liam cheered up. “Sounds excellent. I’ll join you. It’s a bit late for breakfast, but food is food.”

  She squinted at him menacingly. “I missed breakfast at the proper time because you didn’t bother to tell me that you’d already done McAllister’s I.D.”

  Jack gawped at Liam.

  “You can’t possibly still be hungry! You’ve just eaten half my curry and two slices of cake.”

  Annette shook her head dramatically. “How long have you known him?”

  Jack was answered by “my sore nose made me hungry” as Liam headed for the nearest café.

  ****

  Geoff Hamill answered the door of his fifth floor office cautiously, opening it just a sliver at first and gazing down the corridor, before throwing it wide with a sigh of relief. Craig nodded, understanding perfectly. The six-feet-six Liam tormented the shorter Hamill of his lack of height every time they met.

  “Liam’s at High Street.”

  Hamill covered his behaviour skilfully. “Just being security conscious. You can never be too careful working in Gangs.”

  Inside Headquarters? But Craig let it pass. He deserved a break.

  The D.C.I. waved Craig to a seat.

  “Nicky said you wanted to see me, Geoff.”

  “Just to give you a heads up, really.” Hamill reached into his drawer and pulled out a file, setting it on the desk with his hand resting on top.

  “You heard about the shootings this morning?”

  Craig shrugged. “Low level, so we reckoned they were probably to send a message, or get information on someone higher up.”

  Hamill nodded. “You reckoned right. Mind you, they were well organised and coordinated. There’ll be no witnesses of course; the local communities are too scared. We asked the victims who did it but neither of them will say a word.”

  “More scared of the shooters than of us.” Craig checked his facts. “West and south, so both victims were Catholics?”

  “Actually no. The westie was a Prod.” The slang wasn’t written anywhere in the force’s handbook but it conveyed exactly what he meant. “From the Shankill. But they were both up to their necks in something.”

  “Which is?”

  “Encroaching on another tribe’s turf.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “Which tribe?�
�

  “They’re called The Rock.”

  He wondered if it linked with their victim’s tattoo but didn’t interrupt to ask.

  “The name’s supposed to indicate they’re hard men. They’re based up in Poleglass.”

  “And what does this Rock gang specialise in?”

  “The Rock. And they don’t like the word gang.”

  “Sensitive hoodlums.”

  “Very.” Hamill opened the file and began reading. “Counterfeit DVDs, tobacco smuggling, petrol stretching, credit card fraud, numbers rackets, gambling. The list goes on. Oh, and the odd bit of protection and payback beatings.”

  “Busy boys. Any killings?”

  He hadn’t heard of the gang so it was unlikely. He heard about every murder in Belfast, unless the victims were buried extra deep.

  Hamill shook his head. “No murder. It’s their policy. No drugs or girls either.”

  Craig gave a hollow laugh. “My God. Villains with principles. What next?” He paused for a moment, staring at the D.C.I. curiously. “So you’re saying The Rock didn’t do this morning’s shootings?”

  “Definitely not. Their boss is Matias Rey. Second generation Spanish. They have very strict rules.”

  He’d just named their drowning victim. Craig decided to withhold the information for now and asked another question. “So why call me in? No-one was killed today, and you say shooting’s not The Rock’s style anyway.”

  Hamill missed the word ‘today’.

  “It’s not but something is definitely up. We think The Rock has a serious rival for their turf, but we can’t get a handle on them. If a gang war does break out then there’ll be plenty of work for everyone, including you, so I just wanted to give you a heads up.” He rested back in his chair and stared Craig coolly in the eye, adding. “That’s if you haven’t already heard something, of course.”

  Perhaps he hadn’t missed ‘today’ then.

  It was time for Craig to show his hand. “We might have something for you. A body was pulled out of the Lagan yesterday; he’d been in there about two days. We’re still waiting for all the details from John but foul play was definitely involved.”

  Hamill leaned forward eagerly. “Any I.D.?”

  “Just ten minutes ago, from his prints, but the body hasn’t been formally I.D.ed. yet. Andy’s bringing in a relative-”

  Hamill cut in. “But you think it’s…”

  “We think it’s Matias Rey. That’s what the prints say anyway. He had racing odds on him which would fit with the gang’s gambling links.”

  Hamill slumped back, the blood draining from his face. “Shit! This is the start of it.” He shut his eyes for a moment and Craig knew he was picturing blood on the streets of Belfast. When the D.C.I. reopened his eyes he spoke in a monotone.

  “Belfast has been pretty lucky so far. We’ve escaped a lot of the gang warfare that the rest of the UK, and to an even worse extent, Europe and the States suffers, probably because gangs are too shit scared to cross our paramilitaries-”

  “Our home grown gangs.”

  Hamill shrugged, conceding the point. “Yes, but not in the same way. The paramilitaries hated each other on the basis of ideology and religion, and yes, OK, since the Good Friday Agreement some of them have turned to crime, but they’re still not the ‘shoot them dead in the streets gang-bangers’ that you’d find elsewhere.” He waved a hand in the air, indicating the rest of the world. “London had Operation Trident to try to control theirs, and look at the Dublin gangsters at the moment, for God’s sake. They’re killing each other every other day and it stopped being about money a generation ago.”

  “OK, so…”

  “So, The Rock have been pretty easy to handle and I’d like to keep it that way. Like I said: no killings, no drugs and no girls, and anyone who crossed that line got dealt with by their own. Now we’re hearing rumbles that there are drugs and girls coming onto the south and west streets, and I’m not talking about hash. We’re talking Crack Cocaine and Crystal Meth, stuff that makes people kill to fund their habit.”

  Craig frowned. “OK, so who’s moving in on their patch?”

  Hamill’s face was blank. “If I knew that I’d be a Superintendent. We haven’t a sodding clue. We’re hearing nothing, not from our undercover drugs people and not from our snouts. Now you’re telling me Rey’s dead-”

  “We don’t know it’s Rey for sure, yet.”

  Hamill dragged a hand down his face. “Well, we’d better pray to God it isn’t because he was one of their top brass. The Major.”

  Craig was shocked. “But he was only a kid.”

  “It makes no difference. It’s legacy. His father, Xavier, was The Major before him and the ranks are handed down like you or I might give our kids the deposit for a house. Xavier retired two years ago and Matias was jumped-in as the boss in a big ceremony. Twenty-one gun salute and all.” He laughed dryly. “They even had the cheek to send an invitation here.” He shook his head. “If Matias is dead, Xavier will come out of retirement. And for one reason only. To kill whoever did his son.”

  “I thought you said they didn’t kill.”

  Hamill raised an eyebrow. “This is his kid, Marc.”

  Craig thought for a moment. “OK, so if Matias was The Major, what’s the rest of the structure?”

  Hamill turned to the back page of the file and pointed to a chart. It read foot-soldiers, corporals, sergeants and lieutenants in increasing rank. There were five such trees and they all fed up to two captains, one each for west and south Belfast, then one major, and at the pinnacle the general.

  Craig shook his head. Criminals playing at soldiers; God help them all. He tapped the page.

  “Who’s the general?”

  “No-one knows. They work through an honour code and need to know. The lieutenants will only know the captains’ names, the captains the major’s.”

  “Which means the major must know who the general is.”

  Hamill shook his head. “Nope. We’ve tried asking but that seems to be where the information ends. The most we can find out it that the major receives his orders in coded drops.”

  “Computers?” Not more encryption.

  “No. Old school. Radio and print. They pass the information on through classified adverts. It’s real spy tradecraft and it’s worked well for years.”

  Very clever. If no-one knows who the boss is but they all get paid, there’s no chance or incentive for anyone to inform on him to the police.

  Craig still wasn’t convinced. “You must have some idea who he is.”

  Hamill shrugged. “We intercepted a transmission last year where one of the words was knacker.”

  “That’s a Dublin word.”

  The Belfast equivalent was spide, and both words meant wee hard man. Scammers, dippers and hallions, the lowest branches on the criminal tree who didn’t mind whether they stole the eye out of your head or punched your teeth down your throat, just as long as they got paid.

  “That’s all we’ve got.” He closed the file. “When will Rey’s death be confirmed?”

  “Andy’s heading to see the family this morning.”

  Hamill spotted an opportunity. “Would you mind if one of my team went with him?”

  “Fine.” He saw a way to get information. “Providing you keep me in the loop on who you think is trying to muscle in on The Rock’s patch.”

  Hamill slid the file across the desk.

  “Take it. It’s your copy. But you’ll probably know more than us very soon.”

  ****

  The C.C.U. 11.15 a.m.

  As Craig headed for High Street and two interviews, possibly expanded to three, courtesy of Roller Brant’s fist connecting with Liam’s face, Andy was stuck staring at a computer screen, waiting for Geoff Hamill’s tagalong to turn up. The four uniforms parked out on Pilot Street weren’t happy either. They’d been geared up to visit the Reys five minutes after Craig had said. Now they’d missed their breaks and were in danger of getti
ng numb backsides while they waited for some flash git of a detective to swell their ranks.

  Andy was just about to phone Hamill’s office and give him an earful, a privilege only available to those of equal rank, when the click-clacking of heels made him sit up and take notice, signalling as it usually did the arrival of a member of the fairer sex. He dropped the phone and stood up hopefully at his desk. There, standing beside Nicky’s desk in quiet conversation, was a sight that made the D.C.I.’s heart sink. A man in his early twenties wearing the shiniest shoes he’d ever seen this side of patent, and Andy knew that if he examined their soles they’d have metal Blakeys.

  Nicky beckoned the disappointed officer across.

  “D.C.I. Angel, this is D.C. Freeman. Sid. He’s been sent up from Gangs.”

  As the youth turned, Andy registered his pristine suit and the rucksack strapped to his back, like a teenager going to school. A manicured hand shot out and grabbed his, pumping it up and down enthusiastically.

  “Constable Freeman, sir. Very pleased to be here.”

  Andy assessed the younger man quickly. Brown hair slicked back from his forehead, with something that shone suspiciously like oil. Over groomed eyebrows in a shiny face that was slightly chubby but not corpulent; as if his puppy fat still hadn’t gone rather than that he ate five burgers for lunch. He looked like a stereotypical millennial just as he probably looked like a typical forty-year-old divorcee. Each stage of life had its style.

  He retrieved his hand and nodded towards the door, adopting a brusque tone that he thought appropriate to his rank.

  “Better go. Uniforms waiting.” He turned grandly towards Nicky. “Nicky, we’re heading to Poleglass. With some uniforms. Hopefully just transporting a family member. To the mortuary for an I.D. Then back here for a chat, but…”

  Before Nicky could ask why he was using such short sentences they were gone. Andy striding manfully ahead, with his rucksack wearing apprentice scurrying behind. She smiled to herself knowingly. She hadn’t missed the D.C.I.’s quickly hidden disappointment and judgemental assessment of the youth. Her smile changed to a grin as she pictured the interaction when Liam and Sid Freeman met.