Dark Dawn (28 page)

Three miles away, the Mondeo pulled out of May Street and away from the bar. O’Neill was tired and had gotten nowhere in the last three days. Even taking the kid out to Scrabo, choked up as he was, hadn’t given him anything.

He drove up the Ormeau Road, away from the city, away from the station, away from The George. He thought about not going home, just driving through the night, getting out of there. It was a romantic idea, like something from the movies. He heard Ward’s voice in his head: ‘Too
much TV.’

Eventually O’Neill found a parking space and stepped out of the car, glancing up and down the street. It was dead quiet. There was no one around, not even the odd student, heading back from the pub.

O’Neill was lost in his thoughts, trying to imagine life after CID. Would he carry a reputation, forever be one of the ones that didn’t make it? As he approached the door he heard a twig snap behind him. He ducked instinctively and turned his head. A figure emerged from behind a hedge across the street.

The guy swayed, almost tripping down the step. He had long hair and ripped jeans and a Dead Kennedys T-shirt. He stopped and fumbled through his pockets, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Another drunk student. It was the price you paid for living in South Belfast.

O’Neill turned and climbed the three steps to the door, hesitating before knocking. The door opened six inches and a shaft of light spilled out on to the porch. Sam Jennings looked down at him.

‘Evening, Detective,’ she said.

O’Neill looked up at Jennings.

‘I’ll not ask how you got my address then.’

O’Neill wondered for a second why he was there, but who was he kidding? He knew why. He knew it looked sleazy. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t just turn up, unannounced with some puppy-dog face. At least you’re not drunk, he thought.

Jennings pulled the door back. O’Neill was about to speak, to try and explain himself, to tell her what . . .

‘I guess you better come in then,’ she said.

For three hours Lynch sat on, opposite the flat in Stranmillis. After the first hour he knew O’Neill wasn’t coming but he stayed, tucked behind the hedge, turning things over. He thought about O’Neill. Had someone tipped him off? Had McCann tried to set
him
up? Lynch pictured him, sitting in The George. The bar would be empty, having closed two hours ago. McCann would be there though, one way or the other, waiting near the pay-phone. He thought about Marie-Therese, imagining what she’d say if she could see him, hiding behind a hedge, about to do someone for a few grand. Would she care where the money had come from?

Lynch looked at his watch. It was after three. O’Neill wasn’t coming. He stood up and checked the street. The coast was clear. He stretched his legs, pulled his hat low and headed home.

At eight the next morning Lynch left the house. A cold mist hung over the Lagan and had spread out into the Markets. He could see his breath in front of him. He walked with his head down and hands deep in pockets.

He glanced at Marie-Therese’s house. The light was on in the front room. He thought of calling in and asking her right out about coming away. He could lie. Say he won it. It was a family holiday and would go to waste otherwise. A wee bit of sunshine? Take the chill off your bones? He caught himself smiling, unsure at first, but slowly warming to the idea.

The week before, he had bumped into her in the town and they’d gone to Bewley’s for coffee. They got on well and Lynch asked her questions, happy to sit there and listen to someone else’s life. Marie-Therese enjoyed the company, enjoyed talking to another adult. Someone who wasn’t obsessed with babies. She was a natural storyteller and liked making people laugh. They left, agreeing that it had been fun and that they should do it again.

Lynch looked at the sliver of light, shining through the curtains. He would ask her later. Wait until she was leaving the house and bump into her. Keep it casual.

He turned his eyes down the street and saw the Mondeo parked near the bottom. The registration read
KXI. . .
He didn’t need the rest. It was O’Neill. They were after him.

The front seat of the car was back a ways, but Lynch could still see the top of a head. Without breaking stride, he took a hard right down a side entry. He paused, out of sight of the car, and listened. The door opened immediately and he heard O’Neill’s voice and a faint crackle of static. He had back-up. It would be swinging round behind to cut him off.

Lynch instinctively reached to the small of his back. He was halfway there before his mind caught up. He didn’t have the Browning. He looked down the entry, wondering if he could make it home. It was too far.

He stepped back and ran at the entry wall, shimmying up six foot and dropping silently down on the other side. He checked the yard door and saw it was secured with a large deadbolt.

In the yard Lynch stood still, his back pressed against the wall. He could hear a set of footsteps, coming down the entry. O’Neill had stopped running and was walking slowly and cautiously. Lynch could hear him pressing his hand against each yard door as he went.

Lynch heard the door of the next yard swing open, followed by a foot pivoting on wet concrete. O’Neill would be sweeping his gun over the empty space. The sound was followed by a couple more steps. Lynch felt his heart racing in his chest. It was loud and he was sure it could be heard from the other side of the wall. He forced himself to slow his breath. O’Neill was close; the only thing separating them was half a foot of red brick. Lynch stood stock still. He could almost
feel
O’Neill’s hand stretching out towards the door. The wood panels moved a millimetre before catching on the deadbolt. The door rattled but held firm.

Lynch listened as O’Neill moved on, exhaling a long, quiet, controlled breath.

He heard the cop work his way down the entry, counting the steps as they grew more faint. Sixty seconds. O’Neill was 100 feet away. If they didn’t find him now they’d seal the block and go house-to-house. Lynch knew this was his chance.

He reached up and slid the deadbolt as if it was a detonator pin. He then sprang the door, running towards the near end of the entry. He heard O’Neill turn but didn’t look back. Lynch kept his head down and sprinted. A set of car tyres screeched somewhere behind him. He cut off the road and ran down a narrow pedestrian walkway. Lynch burst out of the Markets and on to the main road, two cars skidding to avoid the figure that suddenly appeared in their windscreen. Running full speed, Lynch made it across four lanes of traffic and away.

O’Neill arrived ten seconds later and caught a glimpse of him as he turned down a side-street and made off in the direction of the city centre.

O’Neill put his hands on his knees. His lungs were on fire, burning in his chest. Thirty seconds later, Ward pulled up in a navy Mondeo. O’Neill got in the car, still heaving, trying to get his breath back.

‘You see? What did I tell you about jogging?’

Back in Musgrave Street O’Neill stood in the car park and worked his way through three cigarettes, lighting one from the other.

They would lose Lynch after that. He’d go off the radar completely. Mike Hessian in CCTV would watch everyone who came in and out of the Markets. O’Neill would have someone sitting on the house and someone opposite The George in a disused office block. He’d be given two days. After that, the additional manpower would have to be reassigned. Resources were scarce and O’Neill would be on his own again.

The day he and Ward had sat outside The George and then followed Lynch was what had done it. Walking behind him down May Street, O’Neill couldn’t help feeling he knew Lynch, that he’d seen him before. A couple of days later it clicked. The attack on Molloy. He’d gone back to the CCTV. There were only three seconds where the attacker was walking in the open. O’Neill had watched it over and over. He had Hessian pull up the afternoon video of May Street from when they had followed him. It was the same walk, the same shoulder roll, the same head down.

They’d pulled Lynch’s address from his probation record. Last registered in Brixton, South London. O’Neill checked the records to find out who he had celled next to in the Maze. Jackie Hurson, a lifer from Derry, was on one side. On the other was Peter Hughes. He was from Belfast. The Markets. Bingo.

They’d blown it though. Lynch had vanished. He would have left Belfast straight away and headed across the border. They’d never find him. O’Neill fought hard not to think about the Review Boards the following week. What would happen would happen. If Wilson came for him then fuck it, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. Laganview might bury him, but so what – it would have buried anyone. He still had a week though.

O’Neill stubbed out his cigarette and headed back into the station.

O’Neill came off his shift at eight, thinking about another stint outside The George. The day had dragged after getting so close to Joe Lynch, only to have him slip away. He was hungry and decided to stop off at a place near the City Hall. He knew he’d make a better decision on a full stomach.

The Last Stop café was mostly used by city-bus drivers as Donegall Square was the main terminus. The waitress was in her fifties and looked as if she’d been on her feet all day.

‘Yes, love?’ she asked, as O’Neill took a seat.

‘What’s good?’

‘Stew.’

‘That’ll do.’

Tucking into the bowl, O’Neill looked out at Belfast, settling into another gloomy evening. A steady succession of buses pulled up outside, rattling the windows as they accelerated away. A few late-night shoppers stood queuing – two girls clutched shopping bags, a man read the
Irish News
and two old dears nattered away to each other.

O’Neill pierced a piece of potato and lifted it to his mouth. The woman had been right, he thought, the stew’s not . . . His fork froze in mid-air. The man at the bus stop had folded up his paper and sat looking at him.

It was Joe Lynch.

Their eyes met and held each other’s gaze. Lynch had got away twice and yet here he was, presenting himself to O’Neill.

As if he read O’Neill’s thoughts, Lynch raised his eyebrows and stood up from the bus stop. He folded the paper, tucked it under his arm and casually walked away, inviting. O’Neill dropped his fork and hurried out of the café.

‘Here – you!’ the woman shouted from behind the counter, but O’Neill was out the door.

Outside he could make out Lynch, picking his way between the number sixteen and the forty-five. He kept up a steady pace but didn’t seem to be in a hurry. At the street, Lynch turned and glanced over his shoulder, checking O’Neill was there. The detective wondered what he was playing at. Maybe he wanted to talk. Maybe it was some kind of set-up. O’Neill glanced behind him and set off after Lynch, dodging between two parked cars, watching him cross the main road and head down Donegall Avenue.

Belfast’s main shopping street was crowded with late-night shoppers. O’Neill reached for his mobile and dialled Ward. He cursed when it went straight to answerphone. Lynch turned right towards Corn Market, past British Home Stores and Mothercare. O’Neill studied him carefully. He had looked back a couple of times, checking on the progress of the detective. O’Neill felt safe: the streets were packed and there would be plenty of witnesses. Lynch wouldn’t try anything. From what Ward had told him, Lynch was a pro, someone who knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t take a chance on something like this.

They walked down High Street, then into North Street and the Cathedral Quarter. The road narrowed into a cobbled entry with the designer shops and restaurants on either side. Lynch slowed as he approached Mint, heading for the door to the bar. He paused at the bottom of the steps and looked over his shoulder, straight at O’Neill; then he turned and acknowledged the 16-stone bouncer who stood watch over the door. The detective waited at the end of the cobblestone street as Lynch disappeared into the bar.

O’Neill dialled Ward again, this time getting through.

‘Just hold fire, do you hear? I’ll be there in five minutes.’

O’Neill remained in his place at the end of the entry, watching the door. He was back at Mint. All the pieces were there. He had everything he needed, he just had to put them together. A voice in his head was telling him he’d missed Lynch twice. How many times was he going to let him get away? He could see the main door from where he was, but there’d be fire exits. Lynch could slip out. If you lose him a third time, O’Neill thought, you don’t deserve to call yourself a peeler. He knew the bar would be crowded and there was the look at the bus stop as well. Lynch had wanted to be followed. He had wanted to bring O’Neill there.

‘Fuck it,’ he said out loud. ‘In for a penny . . .’

O’Neill set off down the alley towards the bar. The bouncer stood aside and let him in. If he remembered O’Neill from the previous night, he didn’t show it. Inside, Mint was starting to fill up and O’Neill felt reassured by the number of people there. It was an after-work crowd – men in suits, girls in dresses.

O’Neill clocked Lynch, sitting alone in a booth at the back of the bar. Less than ten feet away, the green sign illuminated the emergency exit – an escape route if more police arrived. There were two bottles of beer sitting in front of him. Lynch flicked his head, acknowledging O’Neill. The detective walked over and sat down, face to face.

‘I ordered for you,’ Lynch said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

O’Neill didn’t recognize the label on the beer. It was some foreign brand, white with red writing –
Tyskie.
Lynch lifted a bottle, tipping it towards the other man, before taking a drink.

‘I don’t normally drink with murderers,’ O’Neill said.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t normally drink with peelers. You should try that though,’ he gestured to the bottle. ‘Foreign stuff. It’s not bad. That’s Belfast for you these days. It’s all exotic imports. Used to be you’d be lucky to get more than a pint of Harp.’

‘Those would be the good old days, I suppose?’ O’Neill asked sarcastically.

‘That would depend on who you were talking to.’