by Alan Gorevan
Joe had to let the boy’s parents know he had passed away. He didn’t them to suffer with false hope any longer than they had to.
“He’s dead, sir,” Joe said.
Superintendent Kavanagh looked at Joe’s car. Then he got up in Joe’s face and grabbed him by the lapels.
“Dead? What do you mean, dead? What did you do to him?”
Of all the people present, Christopher was the one who came between the two men.
“I can tell you,” he said. “When I was tied up, Ken Wall told me I was lucky to be alive. He said he tried to kill me on Thursday afternoon, but he killed another boy by mistake.”
“Is that right?” David O’Carroll said, his shrewd eyes narrowing.
“No,” Superintendent Kavanagh said. “No, it’s not.”
Christopher continued. Joe didn’t know where his son found the resolve, but his voice was firm and he spoke clearly and simply. Everyone was hanging on his words. “Ken wanted to kill me and put my body in my dad’s car to find. But he got the wrong kid. He killed John Kavanagh.”
Superintendent Kavanagh released Joe. Every feature on his face seemed to have slumped.
“Impossible… It can’t be true…”
Dunne said, “I don’t think I showed you my full credentials, Joe.” She produced her ID from her jacket pocket. Joe read it. She wasn’t a regular detective. She was with the Special Crimes Operations division, which meant she had joined the Barry Wall investigation under false pretences.
Dunne wasn’t here to catch Wall.
She was investigating other officers.
“You’re with the SCO?” Joe said.
Dunne nodded.
So this was it, she’d been investigating him all this time. She knew everything and Joe was done for.
Dunne said, “I’m here to make an arrest.”
Joe was even more screwed than he had thought. O’Carroll looked unsurprised so he must have known about Dunne’s investigation already. Superintendent Kavanagh looked shocked, though.
Christopher said, “I also heard Ken Wall talking to someone on the phone. It sounded like it might be a detective. They were talking about money. Fifteen thousand. And Ken said something like, ‘there’s a dead kid here, and there’ll be another one soon’. He was talking about John, and me.”
Superintendent Kavanagh’s face went white, like a switch had been flicked.
“Rubbish. You’re a lying little shit!”
“Hey,” Joe said. “Don’t talk to my son like that or I’ll knock your block off.”
Dunne’s smile broadened. She took out a pair of cuffs – and slapped them on Superintendent Kavanagh’s wrists.
“What the hell is this?” he roared, lunging at Dunne.
Two uniformed officers grabbed him from behind.
Joe stared, not understanding. They were meant to be arresting him, not the superintendent. What was going on?
Dunne said, “As I said, I’m with SCO. I came to Donnybrook to investigate corruption. Joe set the ball rolling months ago when he complained about various investigations and raids coming to nothing.”
“I thought no one listened to me,” Joe said.
David O’Carroll made a derisive snorting noise.
“I told you to butt out,” he said. “I told you I was taking care of it.”
Dunne said, “So SCO began looking into it, together with the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau. We knew Ger Barrett’s organisation was learning things it shouldn’t have known.”
“I never gave him any information,” the superintendent snarled.
“Correct. Kevin Boyle did, to pay his medical bills. But you were giving information to the Wall brothers. For pure greed. But it didn’t stop them killing your son to get revenge on Joe.”
Tears were streaming down Kavanagh’s face now. The sight of it was a shock. He tried one more time to escape responsibility.
“You’ve no evidence for any of this.”
“Actually, we do. Of many kinds. And Christopher here has just proved himself to be a credible witness.”
“How so?”
“We bugged your phones. All of them. And we heard the call this afternoon which Christopher described. Including the bit about 15 K. That’s a precise number. It matches an amount deposited into your bank account last week from an account in the Cayman Islands.”
Kavanagh finally crumpled, falling to his knees, taking a last look at the wreckage of Joe’s car, where his son lay dead, before burying his head in his hands. Despite the heinous acts he apparently committed, providing the Wall brothers with inside information, it was pathetic to see him on his knees in the dirt. He had nothing but a dead son and a ruined career. And a wife whose hate he had probably earned.
“Can I take my son home?” Lisa said.
David O’Carroll nodded. “Soon. We’ll take a preliminary statement now and follow up later.”
“Can Joe come too?”
O’Carroll hesitated.
“Well, we need to talk to him for a few minutes. But I suppose he can make his full statement later too. Does SCO have any problem with that?”
Joe held his breath.
He waited for Dunne to speak.
To decide his fate.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry, but Joe’s not going home with you.”
So this was it. He had been stupid enough to get his hopes up. He’d thought Christopher’s words might have put him in the clear. But Dunne sounded unconvinced. She wasn’t letting him go home. It could mean only one thing: arrest and detention.
O’Carroll raised an eyebrow but that was nothing compared to the anxiety Joe felt.
Suddenly Dunne’s expression changed to one of concern. “I want Joe to spend the night in hospital. He looks like he’s been through a lot.”
O’Carroll looked at him. “She’s right, Joe. You look bloody awful.”
Joe took a long, deep breath. He tried to conceal his relief that he was going to hospital, not a holding cell. He had no idea what would happen later. Would his story, and Christopher’s, stand up to scrutiny? Between Christopher covering for him and the destruction of evidence in the bomb blasts, Joe figured it just might be possible.
At that moment, Superintendent Kavanagh was loaded into the back of a patrol car and driven away at speed.
Lisa and Christopher were put in a separate car, and driven away at a more leisurely pace, headed home. Joe grinned as he watched them go.
Over the following half hour, Joe gave Dunne and O’Carroll an outline of events. Meanwhile, officers swarmed all over Ken Wall’s property, soon joined by people from the Technical Bureau. By the time Joe had finished a bare-bones version of his story, exhaustion had caught up with him.
“That’s enough for now,” O’Carroll said finally. “Get checked out. Rest up. And report to the station tomorrow to write up a full statement.”
The medics helped Joe into an ambulance and drove him to hospital, where he would spend the night.
As he was wheeled to an examination room, he tried not to think about what would happen the next day. It was hard not to worry that he might have missed something. Some shred of evidence that would sink his story.
But after he’d been examined by a doctor, and his wounds had been dressed, Joe fell into the deepest sleep of his life, and he worried no more.
Chapter 102
Joe drove to the station the next afternoon. O’Carroll had let him borrow an unmarked car, a nondescript Toyota, until Joe could arrange a replacement set of wheels for himself. He would be interested to see what his insurance company said about the Honda.
It was a lovely Saturday with a gentle breeze and a clear, blue sky. The cemetery next to the station would be peaceful, but Joe didn’t feel the need to go there today. His body ached, but he was refreshed after sleeping for eleven hours. This morning, after the doctors had discharged him, he’d gone home to his apartment and phone
d Lisa.
She and Christopher were doing well. Lisa said she had heard nothing from Graham and she didn’t seem to care. Christopher’s mood had improved ever since a girl from school texted him asking if he was okay. Apparently, everyone at the Highfield Academy was talking about his ordeal and John Kavanagh’s death, and Christopher was now some kind of celebrity.
Joe still couldn’t believe that Christopher had managed to save him, to re-contextualise the events in a way that fitted the facts, and which Joe thought no one would be able to contradict. Smart kid. He must have got that from Lisa.
The station was quiet, which suited Joe, but he ran into Anne-Marie Cunningham. He’d just made himself a coffee and was returning to the District Detective Unit office when he met her in the corridor. She had a golden retriever on a leash.
“Beautiful dog,” Joe said.
“This is Babe,” Cunningham said. “She was Kevin’s. I guess now she’s mine.”
Joe hunkered down and patted the dog’s head. She lay down, inviting Joe to rub her belly.
Cunningham cleared her throat. “With what’s emerging about Kevin, I wanted to come in and apologise in person. I mean, I can’t believe he helped Ger Barrett’s gang, but it seems he did. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” Joe said. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been wrong recently.”
Cunningham gave a weak smile. She seemed genuinely surprised to find out Boyle was corrupt, and Joe appreciated the apology.
“I better go,” Cunningham said. “Babe needs a walk. I guess I’ll see you after your week’s leave.”
O’Carroll had insisted that Joe take some time off.
Joe brought his coffee to his desk and set to work writing his statement. He’d been working on it for an hour when heavy footsteps, and shouting, interrupted him.
He stepped into the corridor in time to see Alice Dunne walking at the head of half a dozen uniformed officers, who were marching two men to the holding cells. Dunne wore a navy jacket with SPECIAL CRIMES OPERATIONS written across the chest in gold.
The first man, a blond-haired fellow with a scar, was familiar to Joe. Ger Barrett’s right-hand-man. He was struggling and shouting, but the uniforms held him tight. They threw him in the first holding cell.
The second man looked calmer. He was easily recognisable, with his grey curls. Barrett himself. He didn’t look Joe’s way, instead keeping his head down as he was locked in the second holding cell.
Dunne had been busier than Joe had known. He caught her eye, gave her a nod. Dunne nodded back.
All of a sudden, Joe remembered a dream from the previous night, in which Dunne had visited him in hospital. She had emerged from the darkness beside his bed. She’d sat next to him, leaned over and slowly kissed him on the lips, while her cool hand stroked his chest. It had been almost unbearably erotic.
Where did that come from?
The reality of his hospital stay had been more sobering. Aidan Donnelly’s aunt, Maureen, had been in the ward just down the hall from Joe’s. He’d visited her this morning. Physically, she was fine, the doctors said. It was a miracle that she’d escaped the Wall brothers. An ambulance had picked her up just down the road. However, since getting away, she hadn’t said a word to anyone. Her gaze had passed right through Joe when he stood in front of her and admitted he had been wrong about her nephew.
Thinking about it now, Joe shook his head. There would be plenty of time later to reflect on his mistakes.
He returned to his office to continue writing his statement. Once it was complete, he e-mailed it to David O’Carroll, who was upstairs, working overtime because of all that had happened. Joe was sure that he and O’Carroll would have many conversations about the events of the previous days. But for now, for a little while, Joe wanted to forget about the whole thing.
He took out his phone and brought up a photo of Lisa and Christopher. The events of the last few days had just hammered home to him how much he cared about them. Joe didn’t know what he would have done if anything happened to either one of them. He looked at the picture for a full minute, thinking how lucky he was.
Then he walked out to the car park. Before getting into the Toyota, he paused and looked up at the sky, stretching into infinity. There was so much to be grateful for. Joe was alive, he was free, and he had people who cared about him.
He even had plans for the day.
Lisa had invited him over for dinner. He would get there early, and just enjoy spending time with his family. Lisa was going to make Joe’s favourite meal: burgers, chips and milkshakes. That happened to be Christopher’s favourite too.
Chapter 103
Alice Dunne pushed through the steel door at the back of Donnybrook Garda Station. She stepped into the car park, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun, as she watched Joe walk to his car. He was probably going off to play happy family with his ex and their son, and that was fine. Joe deserved a little time to catch his breath. But he wasn’t the kind of man to be content with such a mediocre life.
It had been a fun case, and Dunne was glad Joe got out of it alive. She liked so many things about him, from the way he looked in his leather jacket, to the dry sound of his voice, to the gleam in his cool, blue eyes. She liked his will to win, to get the job done, whatever it takes. She liked his intelligence and his impatience with rules. In a way, he reminded Dunne of herself.
As Joe drove away, Dunne’s phone rang. It was David O’Carroll. She turned and looked up at his office window where he was standing. She listened while he told her that a body had been found at a nearby house. An irate landlord had broken into his own property in order to forcibly evict his tenant. He was only admitting this behaviour because, once inside, he had found the tenant dead.
This kind of thing really wasn’t Dunne’s job, but the station was under pressure at the moment, what with the loss of Boyle and Kavanagh, with Joe being on leave, and with everyone else scrambling to sort out the previous day’s mess. O’Carroll wanted a plainclothes officer on the scene. Would Dunne mind taking a look?
“Happy to help, David. I’ll go right there,” she said.
O’Carroll gave her Graham Lee’s address, but, of course, she already knew it.
She was surprised his body had been found so quickly. She’d only killed him twelve hours earlier.
The previous day, Dunne had followed Joe to The Melford Hotel. She’d lost Joe inside and had wandered about the corridors for ten or fifteen minutes, getting more and more annoyed. But finally, she saw him leaving a room with a backpack slung over his shoulder. Dunne had been curious about what he’d been up to in that room, so, when he had gone, Dunne had knocked on the door. Graham Lee had let her in. She recognised him at once, having seen him at Lisa’s house when she was doing surveillance on Joe.
Dunne could be persuasive when she wanted to be. She immediately grasped that Graham was furious at Joe, so she presented herself as a colleague with a grudge against him. With a little coaxing, Graham had told her everything – how Lisa had killed John Kavanagh, how Joe had covered it up, and how Graham had tried to blackmail him.
Joe had been naïve to think that Graham would leave Dublin, and even more naïve to believe that he’d keep Joe’s secret. Graham was the kind of man who would use a juicy piece of information like that for the rest of his life. He’d be like a bad penny that never stopped coming up.
Dunne decided to help Joe out. An act of kindness. The neuroscientists said that people like her couldn’t be kind, that such a thing wasn’t in their nature. Consumed by egotism, they lacked all empathy, all remorse.
Untrue, Dunne thought. She could be kind when she liked. She wanted to be with Joe. Helping him was helping herself, and if that wasn’t a win-win situation, she didn’t know what was.
After leaving the crime scene in Wicklow late the previous night, Dunne had headed to Graham’s house. She had picked his lock and moved through the house as silently as a cat. Of course, Graham had broken hi
s promise. He hadn’t left Dublin, just as Dunne had expected.
She found him asleep in bed, snoring loudly.
Graham didn’t wake, even when she slipped the needle into his arm.
She’d arrested a drug dealer the previous year, before she joined Special Crimes Operations. The man ended up going down for manslaughter. He’d been cutting his heroin with strychnine. In fact, it was more like he’d been cutting his strychnine with a hint of heroin. Two users had died. Dunne figured he was trying to get rid of addicts who couldn’t pay. She had kept a little of his mixture for herself. You never knew when rat poison would come in handy.
Dunne gave Graham a generous dose of the heroin/strychnine mixture and watched him until he stopped breathing. It didn’t take long.
She made sure to get his fingerprints on the syringe and on the small plastic bag which contained a little more of the drugs, plus some related drug paraphernalia, which she placed strategically around the house.
Then she left, her good deed for the day done.
Before going home, she’d visited Joe in hospital, sneaking into his private room. She missed him and wanted to see his face. When he stirred in his sleep, perhaps sensing her presence, she kissed him. Then she slipped out.
Now, Dunne walked to her Lexus and sat behind the wheel. It would be interesting to see what colour Graham’s skin had turned. How did he look now? She could also make sure that the uniforms and forensics people came to the correct conclusions about his death.
Dunne smiled. She loved being a cop.
She remembered the way David O’Carroll had brought her into the corruption investigation. Dunne had asked if Joe could be one of the officers taking bribes. O’Carroll had broken out in an extended laughing fit.
When he’d recovered, he said, “Not a chance. Joe’s a good guy. He can be a little wild, but he’d never take a bribe. Not in a million years.”
Yes, Joe was a good guy. And a little wild.
Her watch was still at his apartment, on top of his bookshelf. One day soon, she’d go back and get it.