Scalpel (24 page)

He slowly lowered the gun and inspected his body. I am losing weight. London John is right.

London John
was
right.

33

10.05 pm

Savoy Cinema, O'Connell Street

Dean Lynch stood in the queue, lit up like a lighthouse in a lurid green tracksuit top and bottom, yellow roll neck sweater poking above the tracksuit top and red baseball hat with the Chicago Bears written in black across it. He was wearing white runners and yellow mittens, all bought at Heathrow airport shops with the money meant for London John. He had also bought a cheap sports bag there, completely black, which lay at his feet as he shuffled along with the queue. Inside was his black wig, clear-lens glasses, false black moustache, black roll neck sweater, black tracksuit top and bottoms, black socks, black trainers. There were also two pairs of surgical gloves, one Walther PPK double-action automatic pistol and twenty rounds of ammunition carefully packed so as not to be suddenly discharged. Wrapped carefully inside a towel was an eight pound hammer bought earlier in Woodies hardware store along with four feet of strong blue binding twine. It was primed for action. One end had a firm knot into and through which he had already threaded the other end so that it looked like a mini lassoo, easily slipped over a head and around a neck.

He also had something else, his
piece de resistance,
his trademark.

The Savoy was running a season of late night tributes to Francis Ford Coppola. This week it was the Godfather movies,
The Godfather, The Godfather Part II
and
The Godfather Part III.
There were big crowds with last minute
rushes from buses discharging their loads onto O'Connell Street. Lynch beamed at them, like some half-wit. They just couldn't have failed to notice him.

'I'm awfully sorry, I've nothing smaller than this.' He offered the cashier a fifty-pound note for a four-pound-fifty ticket. She glared at him and he smiled sweetly back, removing his baseball hat to give her a good look at his face. Remember me, won't you? When they ask, won't you?

'Would you even have a fifty-pence piece?' she snapped.

'Sorry. Nothing other than that. I came away without any small change.'

The queue behind was getting restless and he turned to 'sorry' them all and let them get a good look at his face. A lot of dirty looks were thrown in his direction, and the ticket collector stared at him with an undisguised contempt.

Lynch finally collected his ticket and change and shuffled the bag at his feet away from the ticket booth. He waited until a few more bought tickets and the crowd had started building up. Then the beaming smile disappeared as, head down, he lifted the bag and made his way to the toilets. There was nobody inside. He was in luck.

Oh, lucky man!

Again.

By the time the foyer was full with crowds thronging up the two opposite sets of stairs to the cinemas above, Dean Lynch was ready. The lighthouse effects were in the black sports bag and a small man in black emerged from one of the cubicles. He checked himself in the mirror and quietly left the toilet, quick, furtive glances ensuring no one had noticed him. Within minutes he was out on O'Connell Street again, nudging his way past the crowds, head well down. Nobody so much as glanced at him. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the small man in black clothes, black shoes, with his black soul and black intentions.

He walked briskly around the corner to Eccles Street where his BMW was parked and checked the double alarms were set correctly. Then he flagged a taxi.

In subdued tones he asked to be driven to the Blackrock
Clinic, saying he was visiting a friend in hospital there. 'She's had her appendix out,' he added quickly before the taxi man started looking for the life story and operating details in all their gory splendour. Throughout the journey all he could think was that he was going to miss the scene in
The Godfather
where Luco Brazzi was strangled from behind. He relived the scene in his mind as the taxi passed the RDS.

I wonder will it be like that?

He glanced at his watch.

At about 11.30 pm.

I wonder will it be like that?

Will her eyes bulge?

On the way out they were stopped briefly in a queue of traffic, a Garda checkpoint looking for Gordon O'Brien. The Garda waved them through without looking and Lynch sighed inwardly with relief. The taxi man started giving out about the kidnapping and the state of the country generally and the bloody government who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. All comments were ignored, his anger wasted on the passenger whose mind was elsewhere. Lynch was completely oblivious to the fact that the nation and world's attention was focused on the baby he had delivered himself It had completely gone out of his head. He was preoccupied with other events. He had his own fish to fry.

He was dropped off outside the Blackrock Clinic hospital and made a show of going towards the door until the taxi man drove away. Then he made his slow but steady way down Rock Road towards the Hawthorns, where Staff Nurse Sarah Higgins lived. It was frosty and as he walked his breath misted. He could smell turf burning and flared his nostrils as it irritated.

He had checked the Hawthorns out earlier. It was an old imposing family home converted into flats, set back slightly from the busy Rock Road, with car parking spaces at the back, each space numbered for the flat occupant. There were eight flats. The car spaces for flats seven and eight were separated by a large chestnut tree trunk, its branches
overhanging the tarmacked park. There were no leaves on the tree, just frost on its bare branches.

He had rung the telephone number on five separate occasions throughout the day, after two o'clock, by which time Staff Nurse Higgins should have left for work. There was no reply on each occasion. He gave a final ring now, from the telephone booth in Mooney's pub, only two hundred yards from the flat. There was no reply.

He checked his watch. It was now 11.05 pm.

'Time, gentlemen, please. Have yiz no homes to go to?' The barman in Mooney's was trying to clear the pub and go home for a good night's rest. A peaceful sleep. Which was what Lynch was planning for Staff Nurse Higgins.

More or less.

He had decided earlier not to use the Walther PPK. He would have loved to have used it and was very, very disappointed at not being able to. Bitterly disappointed, annoyingly disappointed. Angrily disappointed. But he decided it would be too noisy and there was no point drawing attention, possibly even putting himself unnecessarily at risk of being caught.

There's more work to be done after tonight, he told himself. Much more.

He stood behind the massive trunk of the chestnut tree, black bag at his feet, Walther PPK loaded and resting on top of the bag in case of an emergency. A pair of surgical gloves covered both hands, one of which grasped the Woodies hammer tightly. The blue lassoo lay innocently on the ground, collecting frost.

A set of headlights suddenly pierced the blackness of the car park and he quickly glanced at his watch. It was 11.17 pm. Christ, she's early. His heart raced in anticipation. Christ, she's gone to the wrong space. A Toyota Corolla swung into parking space three and two people climbed out, a young man and younger woman. The doors closed shut and Lynch heard the locking mechanisms engage. The man skipped around the front of the car, grabbed his now giggling passenger and the next minute they were indulging in some
heavy petting, tongues down one another's throat. Moans of pleasure floated across the night air.

Fuck off! Lynch almost screamed. Fuck off!

By now the young woman was leaning up against the side of the car, her driver all over her, hands pushed inside her coat.

Lynch reached down and picked up the Walther PPK, preparing for positive action.

Suddenly she broke free, and with a sexy, inviting laugh made a half-hearted attempt to run away. He ran after and the two staggered, groping and tonguing, around to the front of the building.

Lynch relaxed. When he heard the front door opening and slamming shut he gently placed the gun back on the sports bag, checking no one else had entered the car park.

The wait was beginning to annoy him. It was freezing and the cold seemed to penetrate his bones. He peered at his watch, catching the hands in the street lights. It was 11.37 pm. Come on Staff Nurse Higgins, where are you? A light suddenly came on in one of the flats at the back and he looked up in time to see the young lust birds before the curtains were drawn.

Just as the light from the window was shut out, the car park was flooded with the headlights of a Mazda 626, driven by Staff Nurse Higgins.

The car eased slowly to space seven beside the chestnut trunk and the lights were turned off. An inside light flicked on and Lynch could see the young nurse Addling with keys and handbag. The inside light flicked off and the driver's door opened. A white nurse's shoe stepped out, followed by a white stockinged leg, a long white stockinged leg. Then came a white uniform partly covered by a three-quarter-length thick padded dark anorak. Staff Nurse Sarah Higgins turned to lock the driver's side door and flicked the car alarm. The warning lights flicked on and off twice. She coughed slightly as the cold night air caught her throat and she pulled the anorak tighter around her chest.

She turned towards the flats and half-stopped. A twig snapped behind her, then came a faint rustling.

Fifteen minutes later Dean Lynch sat in the back of a taxi on its way into Dublin city centre. He'd flagged it down on the Rock Road and grunted his instructions before settling his black bag in the back seat and climbing in himself. The taxi man couldn't give a stuff that his passenger said nothing more. It was his last run and he was glad to be going home, anyway he'd spent all day mouthing to half-wits.

Lynch arrived outside the Savoy in time to mingle with the crowds coming out after the movie had finished. Head down he pushed his way against the flow and back to the first floor toilets. In an empty cubicle he changed gear again, reappearing in the lurid green tracksuit, complete with Chicago Bears baseball cap. The black sports bag was held well out of sight. He made a special point of saying goodnight to the same ticket collector who watched him come in.

'Brilliant movie,' he enthused.

'Piss off,' suggested the ticket collector under his breath. 'Little moron.'

Lynch drove his BMW slowly back to Ballsbridge, stopping only to drop some of the incriminating evidence in various litter bins along the way.

It was another day's work well done for Dean Lynch.

Day 8

5.17 am,

Monday,17th February 1997

You're late, thought Kate Hamilton as Rory drifted into her consciousness. She could feel him cuddle up beside her, check for her face and turn it round so he could see her clearly. Contented, he settled, thumb in mouth, Ted in hand. Then she was dragged back from the enveloping sleep again.

'Mummy, can we get a puppy?'

She groaned and turned onto her other side. 'Go to sleep, Rory. Go to sleep. It's too early. Go to sleep.'

It was too early in Kilcullen also but the A-team was wide awake, cursing and fuming.

Gordon O'Brien hadn't slept well. He fed just after midnight without any problems, then awoke at 4.47 am, hungry and whimpering to be fed again. Peggy Ryan had the bottle heated and ready within minutes, but with almost the first suck the spasms returned and he drew away. Then the colic hit him like a lightning bolt and he screeched. Tiny legs threshed, knees were drawn up, his little fists shook with pain.

'Oh sweet Jaysus,' muttered Peggy Ryan out loud. 'Oh sweet Jaysus, not again.' She began walking the floors, cursing and muttering to herself. She jiggled the baby up and down, stopping to massage his board-like tummy, laying him over her shoulder and patting his back. But nothing worked. Gordon O'Brien screeched. His screeches echoed
and re-echoed around the cottage walls, penetrating the pillows that Moonface and Tommy Malone and Sam Collins had pulled over their heads in a desperate attempt to drown out the noise. But a colicky baby's cries have great powers of penetration, especially when Peggy walked into their rooms with the child over her shoulder. 'Will somebody take him from me before I kill him,' she screamed. There were no takers.

Before long the A-team was up, bumping and snarling, cursing and swearing. Moonface took himself to the toilet to escape the noise and began poking at the mouse hole with the tip of his boot. 'Come ou', ye little bollox, come ou'.' Sam Collins sat himself down at the kitchen table nervously fingering his earring, wondering how it was all going to end. Peggy Ryan carried the child to the back door to escape the glares and black looks thrown at her. Only for the bitter cold outside she might have walked across the fields, and never returned.

'Tommy, should we not give the little bollox back and go home?' Moonface had had enough. He'd have preferred half a dozen armed bank robberies to this carry on. At least they'd be over quickly, the money split and everybody could go out and have a good time. But this carry on, this is just fuckin' ridiculous, he cursed to himself.

Sam Collins turned his earring round and round as he listened to the exchange. He watched to see Tommy Malone's reaction, wondering how he'd handle this.

'Nah, nah. We're in this too deep. The Gards'll come after us wan way or the other. What's the point of startin' somethin' and not gettin' paid for it at the end?'

Moonface shrugged. He was unhappy, as in very unhappy. He could see this dragging on all week, and there was the match on Wednesday. He sat down at the kitchen table, now covered in unwashed dishes with cigarette butts stuck in empty milk bottles and ash scattered everywhere. Moonface sniffed sour milk in one of the bottles and pulled a face.

'We'll have to do something, Tommy.' Sam Collins decided to put his tuppenceworth in. 'That screeching has us all
demented. If he was any older I'd bloody well plug him one. That'd shut the little bollox up.' He sounded edgy.

From the back door, the screeches reached a new peak as Peggy Ryan jiggled the baby violently. Her patience was at an end and her soothing sounds were now replaced by curses. This made the baby even more upset. He screeched again and for the first time Peggy Ryan slapped him across the face stunning and momentarily stopping his cries. Then he let out an intense and even more piercing scream.

For help.

Peggy Ryan screwed up her fist for another, stronger blow but slackened as she saw Tommy Malone staring at her from the door.

'Put the baby down in his cot, Peggy. Let him scream it off.' She avoided Malone's questioning eyes.

Not for the first time Tommy Malone was wondering himself how this was all going to end. His A-team was showing signs of cracking. It's time to drop off a few more Polaroids and put the pressure on Big Harry. This job better be over soon.

In Beechill Harry O'Brien was planning to end it. The ransom demand deadline had been relayed to him by Theo Dempsey and the decision to pay agreed between himself and Sandra. Jack McGrath had asked if Sandra would make an emotional TV appeal for the release of the baby but this had been refused. Harry O'Brien decided it was pay-out time and had made contact with Security Risks, the English insurance company with which he had taken out his kidnap policy. The policy at first covered only the big man himself, then Sandra when they were married, and only two months previously, the as yet unborn Gordon O'Brien. They had even joked about adding him to the policy.

'God, he's not even born and you have him down as a risk,' Sandra had said one morning as they lay in bed watching her swollen belly ripple with the unborn baby's movements inside.

'I know, I know. I know I'm being silly. But all the same,
the way this country's going I'd feel safer if he was in from the word go.' Big Harry had held the palms of both hands on her belly, feeling the movements of the baby, wondering at the mystery of life.

So the unborn Gordon O'Brien had been added to the insurance policy. Now it was time to cash it in.

7.27 am

Quality time.

Sometimes when Rory was fast asleep and she had a few precious moments before work, Kate Hamilton would he beside him, listening to his breathing, stroking his hair, the mystery of life overcoming her. She would think back to the day she gave birth and first saw his scrunched-up face, heard his newborn cries, felt his tiny body. She would lie and wonder at the marvel of it all, how that act of giving birth had changed her for ever. She had a partner in life, and her life now was all consumed with the child. That morning she wondered all those wonders again, as she lifted his sleeping body and tried to stir him awake.

'Mummy, can we get a puppy?'

End of quality time.

The puppy was talked about while she was in the shower, while she was drying her hair, while she was putting on her make-up and all through breakfast.

'No, Rory. For the last time, no. There's no room for a puppy here and I have no time to start training one and running around cleaning up after him.'

'But I'll look after him. I'll clean up if he makes a mess.'

She put her spoon down firmly and loudly on the table and looked directly into the child's eyes. 'No, Rory. That's a definite No, no. Now don't let me hear anything more about it. Eat your breakfast. We'll be late.'

Big tears filled his eyes and he sat sobbing into his cornflakes, his shoulders shaking and shuddering. Then he hit her with the killer punch, the heart piercer.

'I've nobody to play with. You're never at home. I've nobody to play with. At least a puppy would be home with me.'

The two of them cried into one another's arms until it was almost too late. Then came a mad rush to get him dressed, sandwiches made and last minute wees before he was bundled into the car. She strapped him in carefully, handed him Ted and watched as his thumb disappeared into his mouth. She decided to take him to playschool herself and rang Grandad to tell him. Grandad would pick him up later, make his tea, sit down and play with him for a while, then make her tea. God, she thought, I can't keep this up for much longer.

Just after nine in the library of the Central Maternity Hospital, Kate Hamilton sat across the table from Tony Dowling.

'Rory wants a puppy.'

'Now Kate, I don't wannabe the baddie who ruins his day but don't get a puppy if ye've half a brain on ye.' Dowling came from a farming family in Cavan and grew up with dogs, real dogs. 'Ye can't give a dog a decent life in the city. Dogs need to run free and wild, chasin' rabbits and hares and stoats and foxes. Not chasin' the bloody traffic along the Stillorgan dual carriageway.'

Hamilton was only half-listening. Staff Nurse Higgins was supposed to meet them on the dot of nine. She glanced at her watch, then turned back to listen to Dowling.

'City dogs are a constipated lot. They never get a half-decent run at anythin' before they're being called to heel. "Sit, heel, roll over, beg." All that oul shite. Now ye look at a country dog.' He was off again, warming to the topic. 'Country dogs are usually black collies with a patch of white on their snout or heads. Ye'll see them lollin' about on oul farm walls or at the side of the road, one ear cocked up in the air listenin' for anythin' unusual. And at the first rustle they're off like a greyhound. Country dogs have a bit of character, a bit of style about them. City dogs all look as if
they should be seein' psychiatrists.' He had a bit of a laugh at that little joke himself.

'You've got egg on your tie,' informed Hamilton as she glanced at her watch for the third time since coming in. 'Where the hell is that nurse?'

Dowling started rubbing at the stain. 'Do ye know what I was thinkin' as I was comin' in this mornin'?'

Hamilton dialled Nurse Higgins' number on her mobile, listening to the ringing tone. 'What?'

'We should get up and about in the wards in here. Get a feel for the place. There's somethin' we still haven't put our fingers on. I can't help feelin' there's more these bloody doctors know than they're lettin' on about.'

The number continued to ring, unanswered.

'Maybe she's on her way in. The traffic was bad comin' in from Blanchardstown. Road blocks everywhere, lookin' for that baby.'

'Yeah. Maybe you're right.' Hamilton studied her notes. 'There's two of the doctors I think we should push for immediate AIDS testing. There's two I'm not happy about.'

Dowling laughed. 'Only two? That's a bit better than Jack McGrath. He couldn' stand any goddamn one of them.'

Hamilton smiled.

'Morgan and Lynch. Morgan's been lying, I'm sure of that. His wife more or less said that when we called. And he's been avoiding us ever since. I've sent John Doyle twice to get him and each time he couldn't be found. The other fella Lynch's story seemed a bit too exact for my liking. I think we should ask both of them to come down to the station today. Get the nurse to listen in on them and at the same time ask them why they're stalling taking the AIDS test.' Hamilton collected her bag. 'I'm going to suss out the place until she comes in. Let's meet back here at ten o'clock.'

'Where are ye gonna be in case I need ye?'

Hamilton was halfway out the door already, checking along the corridor for any sign of Nurse Higgins. 'Dr Tom Morgan. I'm going to have a look at him. I want to see him in action.'

Dowling chuckled. 'From what I've heard ye'll be bloody lucky not to feel him in action.'

Dr Tom Morgan was in his private rooms. Hamilton was directed by an orderly, then re-directed by a nurse. She opened the waiting room door gently, not wanting to make herself too obvious to the waiting patients, very much aware how Jack McGrath's heavy-handed police presence had alienated so many. Christ, she thought to herself, the last time I went to see a gynaecologist I made sure I had my legs waxed first.

The first thing that struck her was she was not in a doctor's waiting room at all, so much so that she opened the door again and checked the name.
Dr Tom Morgan, Private Clinic
was written in navy-blue italics on a canary-yellow backed sign. Very trendy.

But when she went back inside she couldn't help but feel she was in a modelling agency. Sitting on various chairs in the quite small waiting room were five young women with long, long legs that just seemed to go on for ever. It was obvious each had gone to great lengths to make herself look as attractive as possible. One wore a short, clinging leather skirt pulled up as high as could be decently allowed. She draped one leg seductively over the other. Two of the others had long black eyelashes that fluttered across the pages of glossy magazines. They wore tight-fitting denim jeans. Another wore the latest from the Paul Costelloe range of fashions and flicked at her hair repeatedly as if trying to decide which was the best side for the day. All five glanced up as Hamilton walked in, eyeing her carefully from head to toe. The eyes returned to the glossy magazines, apparently. All five were sizing one another up, like tigresses, claws sheathed. Given the right opportunity they'd rake across a face in seconds.

Dr Tom Morgan's secretary appeared at the door leading to his consulting room. She was a stunner with long blonde crimped hair, lying lazily over a low-necked tight-fitting cream coloured cotton body-suit top that pushed her young
breasts out for all to see. And her rivals in the room to envy. She wore a mid-calf-length pleated skirt over tan shoes with sexy tights which had little diamonds that caught the eye. And the eye that was most frequently caught was that of Dr Tom Morgan. Every woman who attended Morgan hated his secretary, secretly fantasising about what the two got up to when the rooms were empty. There were rumours of them being seen wrapped around one another at a hospital party, other stories of her being caught rushing out from the inner consulting room looking flushed and embarrassed when an unexpected visitor had called.