Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 (11 page)
“But, really, she’s just another big, blowsy, middle-aged woman full of herself along with mounds of shite and drivel that she unloads at the slightest provocation. But who controls things is a man who calls himself Mide.” Again she gave McGarr a look.
It was another name from old legend, but beyond that ...He shook his head.
Orla Bannon raised her head to pipe a short laugh at the dark sky. “Wouldn’t you know it—us from the North always being more up on things Irish than you who’ve secured your own country in part because of those myths.”
“Mide,” he prompted, now remembering. “The chief Druid of the Nemedians.” Only a few years ago he wouldn’t have had to refl?ect.
“Yes, and—”
“And what?”
“Go on. About Mide.”
“Well, none of this is fair. Obviously you’ve r
e
searched this recently—for one of your articles.”
“Not so recently.”
“And me—I’ve not been to school recently.” Mc-Garr glanced at his watch.
“And not too attentively when you did, I’m thin
k
ing.”
She paused for his reaction, and he wondered if— beyond her obvious attempt to pump him for inform
a
tion—she was actually trying to fl?irt with him. Or was it just the drink?
Her smile was full; she was enjoying herself. “Thought as much. After the Nemedians conquered Ireland, your man Mide came up with this scheme. To demonstrate his power, he built a big ritual fi?re that he kept burning for seven years, some say, without adding
fuel. As a prize or reward, he was allowed to exact a tribute of one pig and a sack of grain from every Irish household.
“Two questions: In what way can the dealing in Oxy-Contin, heroin, speed, and the two cocaines be consi
d
ered the building of a fi?re, consubstantial or otherwise? And could seven years possibly have elapsed before Mide and his gang began their protection schemes?”
McGarr smiled; it was the “back story” humor that cops and journalists shared, if only to keep sane.
“Morrigan’s real name is Sheila Law. Don’t know much about her apart from gossip saying she’s into young men in numbers, which she has, of course—the recruits, addicted, down-and-out whom they take in. It’s the other side that’s not reported much—the ho
s
tels, soup kitchens, methadone clinics they’ve set up. Day to day, they’re run on the up-and-up but are really recruitment centers for culling prospects. The ones who’ll do their bidding competently with few fuckups.”
“What about him? Mide.”
“Fergus Mann. ‘The Fergie Man,’ he’s called. A codger now, but still a nasty piece of work. Former IRA stalwart in the old never-grass-on-nobody-n
o
matter-the-pain mold. Convicted for two murders, he did the Maze thing with Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers, then nearly two dozen other years until he became by his own say-so a visionary.”
“And his vision?”
“Thick, it is. The whole anti-Christian, IRA thing wrapped in different language—that Ireland was better off with the bunch of bloodthirsty bastards who were our ancestors, the Celts. It appeals to anybody who’s ever had their ears boxed by a priest or a nun, which is everybody. But poor kids from worse backgrounds are
targeted. He’s a fookin’ viper, and the New Druids with its CU facade a viper’s nest. Literally.” With her thumb and her fi?rst two fi?ngers, she imitated the action of pushing a hypodermic needle into her other arm.
“You’ve written that.”
“I have. You’ll have to start reading me. How much ransom do they want?”
“Where does ‘The Fergie Man’ hang his hat when he’s at home?”
She hunched her shoulders. “Elusive, he is. As you would suspect, given his present involvements and the years he spent in the drum. It’s said he tells people he’s ‘allergic’ to prison, but I bet he keeps in touch with Morrigan at all times. Being a power monger and co
n
trol freak.”
McGarr turned and began heading off.
“Ah, just when I thought were getting to know each other. Ten million? Twenty? If you tell me, I’ll tell you something I’m only after learning, something you can’t possibly know.”
Stopping, he turned his head and shoulders to her. So far she’d been forthcoming, and without question she had good sources. Maybe she had more for him.
“Thirty?”
He shook his head.
“Forty?”
Again.
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph—fi?fty fookin’ million, which is, mind you, a nice round fi?gure. But Kehoe will never pay it. He can’t.” Pushing down with her hands, she virtually hopped off the bonnet of the car. “McGarr—you’re a gas. Haven’t we got a wee neat story brewing here?” She hugged her elbows and spun a circle, her long dark braid whipping behind her.
“Well?”
“The something you can’t possibly know?”
He swirled a hand. “Think of it as a lane in the two-way street you mentioned when we fi?rst spoke.”
“Okay. Remember, you asked for it.” On heel, then toe, she sauntered up to him, as though to whisper in his ear. She slipped her hand in his jacket pocket and pulled him closer. “Derek Greene?”
McGarr nodded. It was the name of the Trinity sec
u
rity guard who was knocked down and killed two weeks earlier.
“A witness told me the killing car was a BMW.” Their bodies were touching, and her breath was hot in his ear. “The big one.”
“Midnight blue. Gold wheel covers,” McGarr guessed. “Now, for something I don’t know.” The point being to pump her as hard as she was pumping him.
“Two things, darlin’ man—the car, or a car like it, is often parked round back of CU party headquarters.”
“And where would that be?”
“Off the Glasnevin Road near Ballymun. Big place, can’t miss it. Offi?ce is open twenty-four hours a day, methadone center upstairs, a ‘dormitory/hostel’ out back down a laneway for in-patient rehab, the brochure says. Most are New Druid recruits or CU operatives, with the whole health-care operation fi?nanced by the government. Mide, ‘The Fergie Man,’ being quick on his feet.
“Need more?” she again breathed into his ear. “Your man, Derek Greene? He was interred in the Fairview Cemetery six days ago. But the family phoned me this after’. They’ve been told the grave has been disturbed.”
“Disturbed how?”
“Somebody took off his bloody head.”
McGarr waited.
“Grisly, no? Dug up the casket and chopped his block right off the body. And very much the New Druid thing. Rumor has it, they do it to rival gangs, other thugs horning in on their territory. Sends a me
s
sage, one told me. Fook with the New Druids, you end up not only dead but headless. Your mammy pines.”
Sending a message—it was the purpose of Raymond Sloane’s murder, according to the voices on the sec
u
rity tape.
McGarr turned his shoulder to move away from her, but she pulled him back. “What are you doing later?”
McGarr suspected there would be no later for him, only morning. “I imagine I’ll be busy.”
Kissing his ear in a way that made him fl?inch and sent a shiver up his spine, she then shoved him away. “Imagine, then—it’s all you’ll get tonight. But reme
m
ber—you have my card.”
Walking quickly toward his house, McGarr couldn’t help speculate on what any involvement with som
e
body so—what was it about Orla Bannon?—see
m
ingly self-possessed, so sure of herself and her talents, might be like.
But then, of course, how to separate the Orla Ban-non of the byline from Orla Bannon herself, if there were in fact another person beyond the journalist.
And why, with commerce being brisk along their two-way street. Now, if only all of it proved genuine...
AT HOME MCGARR WENT UP TO MADDIE’S ROO
M
, where the light was still on. “How go the sums, Madz— done yet?”
“Nearly.”
“Do something for me?”
Her tousled red head came up from the book. “What?” She was dressed in her pajamas, and the co
v
ers of her bed were pulled back.
“Copy this for me while I’m on the phone. Use the original for the fi?rst, then copy its copy on however many blank tapes that we have.”
“Or tapes that I’ll make blank.”
“There you have it, if they’re expendable. Five will do.” He placed the videotape on the desk, then moved back toward the door and the phone in his study.
“Does it have to do with the Book of Kells?”
“It does, indeed. And after you’re done, I’d like you to see a portion of it.” So you understand what else I do apart from brutalizing the press, was his i
n
tention.
In his study, he called his offi?ce and asked for the e
x
act address of Celtic United and if the whereabouts of one Fergus Mann, convicted felon, were known.
“The Fergie Man? Mide himself?” Swords asked. “Finding him won’t be easy, Chief.”
“Any way we can.” Which meant touts, illegal searc
h
es, wiretaps. “Pull out all the stops.”
“He behind the book theft and murder?”
“Possibility. I’ll also need the accident and police r
e
ports on the hit-and-run killing of Derek Greene.”
“They’re sitting on your desk.”
“Any witness statements?”
“Two, both describing the car as big, dark blue, with gold wheel covers. One said she thought it was a BMW.”
McGarr hoped Orla Bannon’s other tips were as a
c
curate.
Next, he phoned McKeon and Bresnahan and Ward, asking them to meet him on the Glasnevin Road near Celtic United headquarters.
Downstairs in the den, where the television was l
o
cated, Maddie was fi?nishing up the fi?nal tape. “We only had two blank tapes and one more that was ‘expen
d
able.’ ”
“That’s grand. Sit back there, now.” He pointed at a chair. “And I’ll give you some idea what we’re up against. It’s between you, me, and the lamppost, of course. No friends, nobody in school. But I don’t have to remind you of that at this late date.”
“No, Peter, you don’t. I know what to say.” Which was, “My father never mentions his work at home. Not a word.”
In the past, the parents of Maddie’s friends—to say nothing of the children themselves—had tried to e
x
tract any little bit of information they could about some ongoing investigation.
“I came by this only a little while ago. It could be the ransom demand, if the page is genuine. You’ll see.” McGarr slipped the tape in the VCR. Stepping back, he found Nuala standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.
McGarr spooled through the fi?rst part of the video until the black, hooded fi?gure came on with the d
e
mand per se. In silence, the three watched.
“Is it a real page from the Book of Kells he’s bur
n
ing?” Maddie asked.
“We don’t know yet.” McGarr switched off the tape and hit rewind.
“How can anybody, the government even, pay that much money? And how will it get paid? I mean, that much must be a heap of money.”
“Maddie—you should be in bed,” said Nuala. “I want you upstairs. Now.” She stepped away from the door.
“But Peter let me...”
“No ifs, ands, or buts—you’re past time as we speak.”
“But Peter—”
“Now!”
Her eyes wide and fi?lling with tears, Maddie glared at McGarr, as though to ask why he had not come to her defense. She rushed toward the door. “Granny, sometimes you’re such a witch.”
“And, Peter—I’d like a word with you before you leave.”
Not happy with Nuala, he caught Maddie by the arm and swept her into his arms. “I’d carry you upstairs but
you’re getting too big. Night, now.” He kissed and released her.
“Night, Daddy. Love you.” And the “love you” ch
o
rus echoed in the hall until she reached her room at the top of the stairs.
Nuala was back in the doorway, as though blocking it. “Think you it wise to let your thirteen-year-old daughter see something like that?”
It was the fi?rst time in two years that she had ever questioned McGarr’s raising of Maddie, and he had to check his fi?rst impulse, which was to push by her and attend to his pressing business.
“Kehoe will have that tape on every screen in the country by tea tomorrow, so he will.”
Her old dark eyes, which had followed countless politicians over the years, widened, then blinked, as she realized the sense in that. The video of the thieves act
u
ally destroying the book would allow Kehoe to take e
x
traordinary measures—deploying the army squads or actually paying the ransom as a last resort.
The public would have witnessed the demand and the destruction of the book. The press would play it up big, running daily features about the history and value of the relic from a time when Ireland enjoyed cultural preeminence in Europe.
In that way and handled with savvy, which was the man’s hallmark, the theft and the drama of its salvation from the forces of evil—again, as witnessed in the hooded, masked fi?gure on the tape—might initiate a revival of interest in Ireland’s medieval Christian past that no 50 million Euros’ worth of advertising could equal. Or at least spark a revival of interest in Kehoe’s remaining taoiseach for another several years.
“I think you know what I mean. I’m not blaming
you. You are what you are, and we knew that. But are
you doing it for her? Or for yourself?”
“Why would I be doing it for myself?”
“I think you have to ask yourself that.”
Now McGarr pushed by her and started down the stairs. “D’you think I haven’t?”
“Not completely enough.”
At the bottom, he turned and looked up at her. “But you have?”
She nodded. “To absolve yourself of the guilt you feel, when there should be no guilt to be felt. I’ve asked you before, and I’m asking you again—see somebody. Priest, counselor, anybody. But do it. For us.”
“What galls me is how duplicitous and in-your-face it all is,” McGarr could hear Bresnahan telling McKeon through the receiver/transmitter that was looped over his right ear. “Look at that building, bold as brass with a methadone center and even a rehab out back when bottom line is they’re in the effi?n’ trade. They have to be stopped.”
The three private cars—Bresnahan’s battered Opel surveillance sedan, Ward’s new Audi, and McGarr’s old Rover sedan—were parked at the curb on the busy Glasnevin Road several hundred yards from Celtic United headquarters.
It was an old brick commercial building of four fl?oors with a brightly lit shop front over which hung a large green fl?ag with CU in white Celtic script across its face. Interweaved through the letters were designs in bright orange that seemed to mimic the images and symbols seen in the Book of Kells, it occurred to Mc-Garr. There was the tongue and tail of a snake, one paw and the head of a lion, and within one tangle a
p
peared the eyes of a sheep, but deep and soulful, looking out.
Milling in front of the building was a clutch of mainly young men but a few women as well. Most of the men had long hair or beards, and in spite of the weather, which had turned chilly, many were wearing only half-vests that exposed swirls of tattoos and other body designs.
“And would you look at those effi?n’ wankers—pro
b
ably not a job among them in spite of their muscles, tattoos, and perms,” said Bresnahan, the rose pin on the lapel of her jacket actually being a speaker connected to the other two cars via radio.
Although once radically chic herself, Bresnahan hailed from rural Kerry, where conservative values, such as the work ethic, were revered.
But few in the throng could be blamed, McGarr imagined. Ireland’s educational system was disparate, to say the least, and more than thirty years of police work had shown him that poor districts tended to have poor schools, poor community values, and much poverty of the spirit at home. And not all of Ireland’s young had ridden the Celtic Tiger, as the recent ec
o
nomic boom had been called.
“The dole, the drug trade, and whatever they can nick from the public being their stock-in-trade.”
“Ruthie, go ahead now,” McGarr advised through his own headset, as he removed the Walther from u
n
der his belt and checked the clip. “And remember to leave the tape with her.”
They watched as Bresnahan stepped out of the other car and waited for traffi?c to pass before crossing the street. Tall, angular, her red hair fl?owing behind her,
she immediately attracted the attention of the young men in front of the CU building.
She was wearing a black leather jacket and short skirt that made the most of her shapely legs. When one of the men kept stepping in front of her, she said, “Ah, look—you’ve a bit of shit on your shirt.”
When he looked down, she raised an elbow, shoved past him, and stepped into the open door of the shop. “My mistake, ’twas only you.”
Patches of color had appeared in her cheeks, Bresn
a
han could see as she caught sight of her image in the glass of the open door. Why? Because she was in high dudgeon, she now realized.
Nothing browned her off more than hypocrisy of the sort that preyed upon people—the innocent, the trus
t
ing, or here, she suspected, the ignorant: young, poorly educated, inner-city kids with little hope of even dupl
i
cating the straitened lives of their parents. Somebody had to be to blame. Why not the church, Christianity, and by extension the society that had accepted and continued to endorse that religion?
She herself and Ward—her colleague, paramour, now business partner, and common-law husband—had run afoul of Christian strictures. But they had well u
n
derstood the risks they’d been taking and the possible fallout.
Stepping up to a counter covered with stacks of brochures and fl?yers touting Celtic United, its aims and accomplishments, she palmed a bell several times, u
n
til a woman appeared in the door of what looked like an offi?ce. “Help you?”
“If you’re Morrigan, I’ve got something for you to see.” She held up a videotape.
“I hope it’s licentious. Or at least naughty. I’ll co
n
sider nothing less.” A full-length, wheat-colored tunic made the woman look like a classical goddess out of Greek or Roman, not Celtic, myth.
There was even a garland of tiny fl?owers in her long and fl?owing gray hair. Unlike her body, which was fo
r
midable, her face was long, well structured, and thin in the way some middle-aged women lose rather than gain facial fl?esh as they grow older, Bresnahan noted. Late forties, early fi?fties.
“And to whom do I owe thanks for this present?”
“I’m Ruth Bresnahan.”
“The detective?”
“Former detective.”
“Ah, that’s right—she who lives in harem sin, a
c
cording to
Ath Cliath.
Albeit, a small harem and tho
r
oughly liberating sin, I should imagine. How’s life? The three of you still together? Or is it fi?ve?”
“Six, counting all of the children.” Bresnahan could feel the blush that now suffused the light skin of her face. Even now, more than two years later, she rankled at being branded wherever she went because of Chazz Sweeney’s “exposé” of her relationship with Ward and Leah Sigal and the thoroughly happy life they had made for themselves there in Dublin. Which
Ath Cliath
now billed as a “world capital.”
There were communes, groups that functioned as families, openly shared wives and husbands all over Europe. But no such grouping was to be tolerated in Sweeney’s Ireland, where every other class of license and crime was allowed. Which was, of course, yet more hypocrisy. “Yes, we’re still very much together, which is something I would have thought you here
would applaud, given your...Celtic perspective.”
“And do, do. You’re one of my heroes. Welcome. It’s not often the police arrive bearing gifts. What do you have? Give us a look.”
She held out a hand.
“Former police.”
“Ah, yes—former police, which we both know is a patent oxymoron, don’t we, dear? Come.” She took the tape. “If it’s really exciting, I’ll insist you sit on my knee. Did I tell you I like that skirt and those legs? My, my.”
Out in the Audi, Ward commented, “And the report said she liked boys.”
