Dark Circles

CHAPTER 1

Big George Carroll drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the black taxi. He cast a glance at the rearview mirror, and hoped that his passengers didn’t notice. Two pairs of cold lifeless eyes stared back at him. Neither man had spoken a word since he’d collected them at the arrivals gate of Belfast International Airport. He wished that Sammy had given this job to someone else. However, Sammy trusted him and that made George happy. Big George shivered. His mother would have said someone had just walked over his grave. The two men in the back seat were an ill-matched pair. They reminded Big George of the Mutt and Jeff cartoon characters that he loved. The one that reminded him of ‘Mutt’ was tall and thin with the pale face and demeanour of a professional mourner. The second man was considerably smaller standing no more than five feet four inches. His face was as bland and pallid as his colleague’s. George doubted that either man spent much time in the sun. Mutt and Jeff incited something in Big George that was unusual – fear. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to. George was six feet seven and weighed in at one hundred and forty kilos, most of which was muscle. Big George didn’t do fear. The people he dealt with did. Except for the two in the back of the cab. There was something about them that sent the shivers up his spine. The instructions from Sammy were clear enough. Pick up two guys at the airport and drive them to an address in the University area of Belfast. A parking place would be blocked off with traffic cones; he was to remove the cones and park. He was not to converse with his passengers and when instructed he was to move on to a second address. It was a simple, no-brainer driving job. But Sammy had said nothing that could have made George feel the way he did. The three men sat in the car in silence and waited.

Brian Malone stood up to leave his office at the Northern Ireland Infrastructure Agency at exactly five thirty. Although he contemplated having a drink before heading home, he decided that he’d wait and have a stiff one at the flat instead. He looked around and saw that barely sixty per cent of his colleagues were heading for the exit. It was not a good strategy to quit on time if you wanted to make it in the NIIA. Members of the hierarchy would be striding along the corridors checking out who was still at their desks. Meanwhile, the pile suckers would be spending their time playing Solitaire on their computers, or checking their Facebook pages. It was so damn pathetic. Malone didn’t like to think about climbing the greasy pole. He didn’t like to think about spending the next thirty years doing it either. There had to be more to life than shuffling papers about. He dreamt about skipping out on cold and miserable Belfast and heading to Cyprus. He was a diving fanatic and had a long-term plan to open a diving school on the island. He’d chosen Cyprus because it was English-speaking and had a regular throughput of English tourists. The question was how long term was his plan. He’d tapped his parents for a loan, but they were not receptive. Anyway, they needed the money for themselves. He’d looked at the costs, and he needed fifty grand. Said in one breath it didn’t seem like a lot but for a junior civil servant, it would require more than ten years of concentrated saving. By then he might be married with a child on the way and the fifty grand would always be a mirage that he could see in the distance, but was fated never to reach. It was a fine evening so he decided to walk to his apartment. Belfast was almost bearable on an evening like this. Awnings had been installed on bars and restaurants so that when the light rain that was a constant visitor to the city made its appearance, the customers could still enjoy the continental lifestyle without getting drenched to the skin. As he walked along, he smiled at the after-work groups enjoying their drinks. Life didn’t seem so bad and maybe even the fifty grand wouldn’t turn out to be a mirage. You never really knew what was around the corner.

Jeff sat in the rear of Big George’s cab with a photograph on his lap. The face in the photograph was etched in his brain, but he was a professional and it was better to be sure. There was not going to be a fuck-up. He was in the zone. He knew what had to be done. Two men were to be murdered, and nobody would be the wiser. Both would be made to look like natural or accidental deaths. ‘We’re on,’ Jeff said softly as Malone turned a corner and walked slowly in the direction of their cab.

Malone took no notice of the black cab parked on the street where he lived. He was whistling and looking straight ahead as he approached the door of the house containing his apartment. He didn’t notice the two rear doors of the taxi opening or the shapes of the two men exiting. He slipped the key into the front door and turned the lock. As he pushed the door open, he was shoved from the rear and stumbled into the small hallway, just ahead of the two men dressed similarly in black polo neck jumpers and dark trousers. He turned to remonstrate, and as he did so was struck on the side of the temple. The blow didn’t appear to be hard. It was more of a sting than a blow, but it was sufficient to turn his lights out.

Mutt caught him before he hit the carpet. Jeff removed the keys from his hand, and together the two men carried him to the door at the end of the hall where a plastic ‘2’ hung upside down. Jeff inserted a key and turned the Yale lock. They carried the prone body inside.

‘First things first,’ Jeff said in a soft Glaswegian accent. He removed a small box from his side pocket and opened it as his colleague sat Malone into the only easy chair in the room. He removed a large hypodermic syringe from the box and slowly pulled the plunger down, filling the glass body of the syringe with liquid from a vial. He opened the young man’s mouth and lifted his tongue. He plunged the syringe into the underside of the tongue and pushed the plunger. ‘Instant heart attack,’ he said to his colleague.

Mutt turned and looked at the figure slumped n the chair.

Malone moaned and looked like he was about to come awake when he shuddered, fell off the chair and lay on the floor. His eyes opened, and he saw the two men looking at him. He remembered that he was hit on the head, but that wasn’t where the pain was. His chest was aching, and he was having difficulty breathing. He tried to get up but found that he couldn’t move. The pain in his chest was excruciating. He tried to speak, but no words came from his mouth. He lay back.

Jeff dismantled the syringe and put it back into the box. He slipped the box into his pocket and then felt the neck of the man lying on the ground. The pulse was still there. He went around the small flat opening drawers and examining the contents, making sure to replace them in their original positions. He looked over at his colleague who held up a plastic bag containing a laptop computer. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the man on the ground convulse. He abandoned his search and stood directly in front of the dying man. He had seen many men die. Some he had sent to their Maker, whilst for others he had simply been an observer of their last moments. He watched the man convulse again. He was not a religious man, but he carried out an experiment every time he saw someone die. He tried to identify that moment when the soul left the body. He put his fingers on the young man’s neck. There was still a pulse, but it was weak. The potassium chloride was doing its job. Without immediate medical attention, death was just around the corner. He would have preferred some other method of murder but the instructions were that it had to look natural. There was nothing more natural than a heart attack. He went back to his observations. Although he was convinced that the soul did not exist, he was ready to change his mind if on even one occasion the dying person did not go from a living breathing entity to a waxwork figure in an instant. The man on the ground convulsed one last time and expired. Jeff placed two fingers on the side of his neck and felt no pulse. Brian Malone had left the building.

The two men glanced at each other and took one last look around the flat. Jeff dropped the keys on the dining table, and they let themselves out.

CHAPTER 2

‘David, for Christ’s sake put your hand up for the vote.’

David Grant suddenly came out of his reverie due to the sharp pain in his side. He looked to his right and saw that his colleague had jammed an elbow into his ribs. ‘What? Vote?’ Grant said absentmindedly.

‘Put your bloody hand up.’ His colleague grabbed his right jacket sleeve.

Grant raised his hand and looked into the chamber of Belfast City Council. All the members of his party had their hands raised, as had been agreed with their leader. The Chairman made a piece of theatre out of counting the hands before declaring that the vote had been passed. Grant had no idea what he had just voted for, but he would have followed his colleagues anyway.

‘What the hell’s up with you?’ Grant’s colleague asked.

‘I was away with the fairies,’ he answered.

‘You’ve been away with the bloody fairies for the past two weeks.’

Grant dropped his hand down to the edge of the bench and felt the briefcase sitting beside his right leg. It was a crocodile skin case that had been a gift from his brother who worked for a development agency in Madagascar. He’d seen similar cases in a shop in Royal Avenue and there was no way he would have been able to afford one. The contents of the case were the reason why Grant had been so distracted over the past several weeks. He had no idea why the local Deep Throat picked on him. He assumed it was because he was the only Jewish member of the City Council. Whatever the reason, the documents were of such an import that they were certain to change his life. The question was whether it would be for the better or the worse. One of the City Councillors had launched into a speech about flag days or marching or some such other issue that was of no consequence to Grant. He wasn’t very religious and hadn’t been in a synagogue in years but being Jewish in Northern Ireland had its advantages. As a young solicitor, he was expected to join the Masons, but he was spared the more or less obligatory membership of the Orange Order.

‘You look shot.’ His colleague was staring into his face. ‘You’re either burning the candle at both ends, or you’re coming down with something very nasty.’

Grant was well aware that he looked dreadful. His normal pallor accentuated the dark circles under his eyes. He had spent the past two weeks examining documents that would have an explosive effect on the very fabric of Northern Ireland, and on his career. He remembered the part of the Bible where Jesus had knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane and wished that the chalice would pass. As he had struggled to make sense of the papers that had been entrusted to him, he wished he had never accepted them. He was also sorry that he had involved one of his friends in the exercise of understanding what were extremely complicated documents.

‘Maybe you should see a doctor,’ his colleague suggested.

‘Just overworked,’ Grant said because he realised that his colleague was waiting for a reply.

‘Take a rest,’ the colleague said. ‘The Council takes a break in the next few weeks. Most of the issues on the table are facile anyway, so you don’t even have to turn up here for this bullshit.’

The Chairman was attempting to bring a speaker to a conclusion but was encountering a high level of resistance.

‘Any more votes this evening?’ Grant asked.

His colleague looked at the order paper. ‘Nothing. As soon as the extremists have had their say the Chair will wrap us up.’

Grant cleared the space in front of him and dumped the documents into his briefcase. It was time to go home.

CHAPTER 3

Mutt and Jeff sat in David Grant’s small house. The lock on the front door had presented no problem to them and there was no alarm. They waited patiently and silently in the dark. The house had been searched from top to bottom. Although both men knew it was getting late, neither had looked at his watch. They would wait until they had finished their job.

Grant pushed in the door of his house. He had opted to renovate a modest two-up two-down dwelling in the Ashley Avenue rather than go for an upmarket new-build apartment. He had tried to maintain the character of the property and felt that he had succeeded. As he entered, he dropped his briefcase on the floor and made his way to the kitchen at the rear. He plugged in the electric kettle and opened the door of the American-style fridge. The remnants of a lamb rogan josh and some sticky white rice stared back at him from the middle shelf. He didn’t feel like facing a reheat, so he took a packet of cheese slices and a tomato from the upper shelf. He pushed the door of the fridge closed and saw a small man standing on the other side.

‘What the ...,’ Grant dropped the cheese and tomato on the floor. He saw the small man’s hand move, but it appeared to flash very quickly to a point on his head. He felt dizzy for a second and then hit the kitchen floor.

Mutt appeared at the door and without speaking moved to the prone man. ‘We’ll need help,’ he said simply.

Jeff nodded. ‘The Hulk in the cab?’

‘Has to be.’

‘Shit.’

‘I’ll get him.’

Jeff nodded. He never thought about his lack of stature. He had a set of skills that did not depend on physical prowess. However, the man lying on the kitchen floor weighed in at perhaps one hundred kilos and there was no way he and his colleague could manhandle deadweight of that size.

Big George and Mutt appeared at the door of the kitchen.

Jeff handed George a pair of surgical gloves. ‘Put those on and help me get him into the hallway,’ he said.

George looked at the prone man. Sammy had told him to stay out of the way, but he didn’t want to get into an argument. He took the gloves and put them on before picking up Grant’s feet. Mutt had chosen his shoulders, and together they lifted him. They walked through the kitchen door and into the hallway.

Jeff had already placed a small case on the ground and was removing an item of female clothing. ‘Undress him.’

George was wondering what was going on. He knew the two boys were heavy metal, and that they had come to Belfast to do some kind of special job. The guy on the floor was out for the count and the man who had helped him carry him into the living room was taking the guy’s jacket off. George removed the man’s shoes, noting the level of wear, and then removed his socks. His partner was removing the shirt so George loosened the belt on the man’s trousers, and pulled them down. The guy was wearing a pair of white Y-fronts which had turned grey from washing. George hesitated. ‘Everything?’ he asked.

Jeff looked at him.

George pulled down the guy’s Y-fronts. The man was lying naked on the floor. George examined his tackle and saw that he was both circumcised and fairly well endowed. He looked away and saw that Jeff had already laid out a pair of ladies’ fancy knickers, a brassiere, a garter belt and a pair of ladies’ stockings. He didn’t like what the two men were doing. It wasn’t nice to dress a man in women’s clothes.

‘Out of the way.’ Jeff pushed George aside and picked up the garter belt. With a quiet efficiency, he dressed the man on the floor in the female items. Mutt lifted the guy up so that the brassiere could be affixed to his torso. Jeff slipped a camisole over the stunned man’s head and put a pair of red high heals on his feet before standing back to admire his work. He smiled and turned to George. ‘Get him up.’

They lifted Grant up into a vertical position. An open wooden staircase ran to the upper floor with a short return on the landing. Jeff climbed the stairs and tied a rope to the post at the top of the stairs. He dropped the noose-end of the rope down to his colleague who put it around the semi-conscious man’s neck.

‘Keep him up,’ Mutt said to George. He went into the kitchen, returned with a chair and placed it directly under the stair post.

Together they hauled the prone figure up onto the chair.

Grant moaned as he was manhandled into a vertical position. His eyes began to open. Jeff, at the top of the stairs, immediately put strain on the rope, and Grant was in a semi-hanging position with his feet just about able to reach the seat of the chair. He suddenly opened his eyes and began to choke.

Mutt kicked the chair away making sure it fell in a natural position.

Grant swung in the air and started to kick his legs. He hit Big George in the face with the heel of one of his shoes and opened a cut in his cheek.

‘Hold the bastard’s legs,’ Jeff called from above.

Big George lunged at the flailing legs and grabbed them. He held them tight. He could hear the noise of the man choking above him, but held on to the legs for dear life.

‘Pull down, you big fucking oaf,’ Mutt shouted.

George did as he was told and the force in the legs gradually reduced until there was one final kick, and they went quiet. He released his grip and looked up into two bulging eyes. He stood back. He hadn’t bought into this. He was only the driver. He put his hand up and felt the blood running down his cheek.

Jeff descended the stairs and joined the two men below. They stared up at the body. Jeff rearranged the chair. Grant had kicked off one of the red high heels, and they left it where it lay. Jeff pulled down the top of the panties Grant was wearing and took his penis out. He moved Grant’s hand over and rubbed it on the penis.

Big George looked away. He didn’t mind the heavy stuff, but this was bloody sick. He didn’t know what had happened with the poor bugger at the flat, and he didn’t want to know. ‘You need me?’ he asked.

Jeff shook his head.

George made for the door.

Mutt and Jeff made a final appraisal of the hung man. They nodded at each other and made for the front door. Jeff noticed the briefcase in the entrance hall and nodded at it. Mutt picked it up and took it with him.

George was already behind the wheel of the black cab. He started the engine as the two men exited the house.

Jeff pulled the door of the house closed behind him. The two men retook their places in the cab and it pulled away from the curb.

‘Where to?’ George asked.

‘Belfast International,’ Jeff said.

‘It’s night,’ George said. ‘There are no flights.’

‘Belfast International.’