Dark Dawn (22 page)

‘Do you recognize these men?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

Ward held the woman’s gaze for several seconds before picking the photographs from the table.

As he walked down the hall he caught sight of the family portrait hanging on the wall. The kids were twelve or thirteen. Everyone was smiling. William Spender included.

William Spender admired himself in the full-length mirror. There was something about black tie he’d always liked – the polished shoes, the white shirt, the tight collar. It was like a dress uniform for the successful. He tilted his head back, straightening his bow tie. Not bad, for the son of a builder, he thought. Black tie had become almost a monthly fixture on Spender’s calendar. It seemed businessmen across Northern Ireland couldn’t wait to get together and congratulate themselves on how well they were doing. The trousers had been a bit of a squeeze and Spender wondered if he needed to finally go up a size. He patted his gut softly, thinking about his favourite restaurants – Deane’s, Cayenne, The Merchant. Venison steak, pan-fried scallops, Dundrum mussels.

‘How could a man not get fat?’ he said out loud.

Tonight was the Chamber of Commerce awards dinner. It was an annual event. A five-course meal at the City Hall and anyone who was anyone would be there. His friends from Planning, as well as a few folk from the City Council. It would be a good chance for him to see them, make sure they were all on side for the upcoming Gasworks project. The favours for Laganview had all been paid up.

The Chamber of Commerce had some doll from UTV presenting the awards. Spender Properties were receiving one for their work in the Cathedral Quarter. Spender laughed at the idea – as if you needed to be rewarded for making money! It was money that mattered. Money spoke louder than any bit of Waterford crystal ever could. At night, when he couldn’t sleep he’d drive round Belfast in the Mercedes, doing a loop of the various developments he’d built. It was a counting exercise and not a little bit of self-congratulation. There were the houses up the Hightown Road, the Cathedral Quarter, Laganview, and now the Gasworks project. Spender would sit in the warmth of the car, listening to the hum of the engine, whispering to himself: ‘She’s mine. So’s she. So’s she.’

He knew the Chamber of Commerce do would be good publicity and would undoubtedly bring more investors on board. From the plans alone they’d sold half the apartments at Laganview. In Northern Ireland people couldn’t get enough. It was as if they’d been let off the leash after years of straining. Folk walked round show apartments and pulled out their cheque books. The banks were everyone’s friend, and were giving out money hand over fist. With Laganview they’d be able to raise the price by a hundred grand per apartment when they released the second phase. The important thing was that work was back on track. It was easy. A few more Poles swinging pickaxes and the thing was on schedule again. The police were a joke. Strutting around like they owned the place. They didn’t, Spender reminded himself.
I do.

Karen walked into the bedroom from her en suite. Something was up with her: she’d had a face on her since Spender walked in the door an hour ago. He didn’t know what she had to be unhappy about – she’d just put on the black silk dress, the Yves Saint Laurent number that cost the guts of two grand. She sat at her dressing-table, putting the finishing touches to her make up. Karen had been stunning when they had first met. She was still attractive and had kept her figure well. Spender glanced at her in the mirror. He liked walking into a crowded room with her on his arm. Heads turned. The men looked at her leeringly and women as if they wanted to slit her throat. After their entrance though, he could never wait to get rid of her. He’d park her with the rest of the wives. Let them talk about whatever it was that they talked about. He could go off with the men. Talk business. Tell them how well Spender Properties were doing.

He finally got the bow tie fixed and stood back from the mirror. From the dressing-table behind him, Karen’s voice piped up.

‘That policeman was back again today.’

She tried to feign indifference, as if she was asking about the weather or what he fancied for dinner. Spender turned and looked at his wife.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said the policeman called again. He was looking for you.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘He was asking about the body. I told him I didn’t know anything.’

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘That’s what I said.’

Spender walked to within striking distance and stood over his wife. He pointed a finger in her face.

‘What did I tell you about talking to people about my business?’

Karen tried not to look at her husband. It only made him angrier. She’d learned that a few years after they were married when the kids were still wee. She knew she needed to hang in there for them. Spender hadn’t raised his hand to her in years. But that person was still there, still inside him, she could see it now, just below the surface. She used to wonder if he had changed or whether she got better at reading the signs and staying out of trouble. Her husband’s eyes bored into her now and she sensed a storm brewing.

‘What else did you say?’

‘He knew about Phillip.’

Spender flew into a rage. ‘Did you invite the guy in?’

‘He just wanted to talk. Ask a few questions. What was I supposed to do?’

‘What did he want to talk to
you
about?’

‘I don’t know. The body. Phillip. Drugs.’

‘What did I tell you about running your mouth off? When it’s something you know nothing about . . .’

Spender remembered the Cavehill Road development ten years earlier. He had been about to finalise contract negotiations for a block of shops with eight apartments. Karen had been talking to someone at the gym or the hairdresser’s, the wife of Paul Bartholomew, a property solicitor in Belfast. Next thing, Mrs Bartholomew goes home and tells her husband, who tells one of his clients – and bingo! The deal gets stolen, right from under Spender’s nose. The development was due to net him over half a million.

Spender took a deep breath and tried to rein in his temper. He needed to know everything that had been said. What the detective wanted to know and, more importantly, what she’d told him. Karen didn’t know anything, but you couldn’t be too careful. He knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of her if it turned into a slanging match.

He went downstairs and poured himself a large Bushmills. He made up a gin and tonic for his wife and set it on the kitchen table. They could be late for dinner. This was more important. After five minutes he heard Karen’s heels click along the hall.

‘Have a seat before we go out,’ Spender said calmly. ‘I’m not cross with you. It’s those frigging cops. They cost me thousands . . . cost
us
thousands, shutting down the site for most of last week. If they have their way they’ll do it again. All over some wee hood that no one gives a damn about.’

He got Karen to talk him through the conversation with Ward. She told him about Phillip, about the drugs, the stealing, the fact he’d been gone for over a year. She told him about the black book, the one with the numbers. The one he had taken off her when she showed it to him.

‘Is that everything?’ Spender asked. Her eyes shifted.

‘He wanted to know where you were the Sunday night the boy was killed.’

‘I was here. You know that.’

‘That’s what I told him.’

Spender sensed there was more.

‘You were up late though.’

‘I’m up late most nights.’

‘Well, I was in bed. Asleep. But I thought I heard the car leave.’

‘No, you didn’t. I was working downstairs until three in the morning, getting figures ready for the accountant. Busting my balls, Karen, so you can go to dinner parties in frigging Yves Saint Laurent dresses.’

Spender felt the heat rising in him again. How could she be so stupid? The word ‘divorce’ popped into his head, as it did most weeks. He dismissed it. His solicitor had run out the numbers, twice now, on how much it would cost. It was cheaper to keep her around, keep her in haircuts and designer dresses. He could always get his kicks elsewhere.

‘How do you think all this gets paid for, Karen? The house, the new kitchen – that wee coupé you’re driving out there? I work for it. Me.
I
make it happen. Do you want it all to suddenly vanish? Are you that frigging stupid?’

Spender’s wife slowly shook her head. Her husband drained his glass.

‘They’re just trying to stir things up. They come out here, see we’re doing all right for ourselves and they want to have a go at us, try to take it all away.’

Karen looked at her husband. He smiled, wanting to let her know it was OK. She might have messed up but he forgave her. At the same time his head was racing, wondering what the cops were doing, what they would make of what his wife had told them.

‘Let’s get in the car and go. And if the cops call again, then you don’t answer the door. All right?’

Karen nodded her head and the two of them stood up from the table.

1.57 a.m. The road outside The George was deserted. From the mouth of the alley, Lynch could see the full length of the street. He’d been there since eleven. He looked at his watch. McCann’s boys wouldn’t be late.

He reached down to his ankle, running his hand over the duct tape that held the Browning in place. It was secure, still hidden. He knew it would be. He also knew there was a good chance he’d have to use it. They might be trying to get him back in the game but it could also be a set-up. McCann had a tendency to see things in black and white. It was an easy logic. People picked a side. You’re with us or you’re against us.

McCann had guessed that Lynch was behind Molloy’s accident, and Molloy was one of his boys, so anything that happened to him might as well have been directed at McCann. As far as he would be concerned, Lynch was a liability. People like him didn’t just settle down, get a nine to five, pint down the local, football on weekends. And if he could do that to Molloy, he couldn’t just be ignored. Lynch wondered if the operation was meant to test the waters, McCann giving him a chance. If he wasn’t interested, would there be instructions to get rid of him when the job was done? A working interview? Either way, Lynch knew there was no more stalling. He was backed into a corner and it was time to choose.

A grey Honda approached The George and parked up, turning off its headlights, but keeping the engine running. One man sat behind the wheel. Even from 40 yards, Lynch could make out Molloy’s profile. He jogged over, going behind the car to check the footwell of the back seat. It was an old trick, to hide someone in there. The target got in and before he knew it he had a gun at the side of his head. It didn’t leave much room for negotiation.

Molloy had lost the white bandage from his nose. The swelling in his eyes had gone down, and the purple bruising was a mild discolouration, a brown and yellow stain. Lynch got into the car. Pretending he hadn’t shut his door properly, he reopened it. It might have been tampered with, have the child lock flicked on. At least now he knew he could get out, make a run for it if he needed to. Molloy didn’t look at him and drove off without speaking.

The two men sat in silence as the car made its way up the Newtownards Road. They passed Stormont, its white imperial face lit up against the black night sky. Lynch looked at the building, the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly. For decades it had been a symbol of everything that was wrong with the North. From there, successive Unionist governments had put the boot into Catholics. Now everyone was round the table, the Chuckle Brothers, playing Happy Families. It was easy to be happy when you were taking home thousands every year for sitting round talking all day.

The roads were quiet, except for a few solitary cars, weaving their way through the dark.

‘We’re playing taxi tonight. Making a pick-up,’ Molloy said. ‘Taking it to a drop off. Easy money.’

Lynch imagined Robert De Niro in
Taxi Driver.
Was it Travis Bickle, he was called? He remembered the bulging eyes, the psychotic voice.
‘Are you looking at me?’
He wondered who fitted the part better, him or Molloy. Molloy liked to think he was dangerous, that he lived on the edge. Lynch smiled quietly to himself, remembering there was only one of them that had been to see a shrink in the last few weeks.

The car turned off the main road into a large council estate. Rows of pebble-dashed houses, once white but now a dull grey, were lit up by orange sodium street-lamps. On every corner the kerbstones were painted red, white and blue. Molloy pulled up beneath a 30-foot Loyalist mural. A masked gunman loomed over the car, clutching an AK-47.
Prepared for Peace. Ready for War.

Lynch didn’t like it. Peace Process or no Peace Process. A couple of Catholics, parked in Ballybeen at two in the morning?

‘Don’t panic there, Lynch,’ Molloy said. ‘This isn’t a trip down Memory Lane. It’s the new Northern Ireland. You’ve got to remember we’re all in this together.’

Lynch felt his senses sharpen. They had been slowly tightening all day and were now razor-sharp. He felt as though he was aware of everything. The estate outside – he’d immediately scoped the four places someone might come from. He had an escape route for each scenario. He could sense Molloy’s hands and knew where the other man’s eyes were looking. He heard the other man’s breathing, sensed its rhythm. He was looking for a sign. Anything. A split-second head-start. Half a chance. It might be all he got.

‘So what’s the story?’ Lynch asked.

‘You don’t need to know that,’ Molloy answered. After a few seconds he continued: ‘It’s purely business these days.’

‘I see.’

‘You don’t need to see, Lynch,’ Molloy told him. ‘That’s not your job. You just need to do.’

Lynch rolled his eyes. Molloy had memorized every bad gangster film he’d ever seen. The more Lynch looked at the estate, the painted kerbstones, the mural, the more he wondered if
he
wasn’t in fact the package. Might McCann be delivering him up to somebody?