13. The 750 Norton
CHAPTER 13
THE 750 NORTON
I pulled in front of the monument at the top of Knockagh Mountain. The memorial was a massive granite obelisk that had been put up here to commemorate the dead of the two World Wars.
I’d been up here many times since I moved to Carrick. It was a great place to smoke weed and look at the view, and you could see for fucking miles. On a very clear night, you could spot the planes landing at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow to the north, and on clear mornings you could see as far south as the Mountains of Mourne.
But I wasn’t here to smoke weed and enjoy the view. I was here to nail a murderer.
It was your usual impetuous, stupid, Duffy-not-thinking-things-through plan.
Duffy, it had to be said, was a man at war with himself. The mature, responsible suburban family man at odds with the dingbat eejit looking for trouble at the first opportunity. I wondered if all men were like this, and I wondered if there was anyone to talk to about it. Certainly not Crabbie—when conversations veered near the personal, you could see that big ganch looking for the nearest exit.
Stuff to work on, Duffy, stuff to bloody work on.
If this little adventure doesn’t kill ya.
I hid the Beemer in the shadows near the stone wall next to the sheep field, and then I ran down the Knockagh Lane and waited in the bushes.
I knew he’d come.
You don’t break into a peeler’s house and bug the phone with a very expensive piece of equipment, and then not come when the copper is about to meet an informant revealing exactly who you are.
He was smart, and he had the moves and access to the best of equipment, but what was going to nab him was old-fashioned police work. Classic fucking sting.
But you know, chickens/hatched, so I immediately touched wood.
I waited for ten minutes, looking at the streetlights in Scotland twinkle across the black water.
It was a still, cold night, and I could hear the fucking bike from two miles away. Was it a Norton? Oh, yes. I wouldn’t say I was an expert on motorcycles, but I knew my Triumphs and I knew my Nortons. Who didn’t? It was one of the classic binaries I was always on about. Liverpool / Man United. Presta valve / Schrader valve. Beatles / Stones. Triumph / Norton.
Over the years, I’d had countless boring stakeout conversations on the relative merits of the two companies and their machines. It was not a moot point, because although both companies went bankrupt in the 1970s, both were going again in the ’90s and making bikes in small but profitable numbers. I was a Triumph guy. The Norton had a reputation for looking good on the outside but breaking down under the slightest bit of pressure. I’d ridden Nortons before, and they were very cool, but I wouldn’t trust one to get me to the local chippie. Brando’s bike in The Wild One ?—Triumph. James Dean’s motorcycle of choice? Steve McQueen’s ride in The Great Escape ? Which bike did Evel Knievel use to jump the fountain at Caesar’s Palace? You get the picture. And which bike broke down repeatedly for Che Guevera as he rode around South America? Fucking Norton, wasn’t it? This particular Norton Commando was chugging its throaty, unmistakable way down the B road toward me.
I was amazed at the arrogance of this prick.
Even though he’d been ID’d riding this big black, noisy bike, he didn’t dump it. Didn’t burn it. Hubris. Yeah, there were eight thousand of them in Ireland, but he was still a cocky bastard.
My watch said 12:35. He was hoping to get here half an hour early and get the drop on us.
He came down the Knockagh Lane at 40 mph and skidded to a stop in front of the monument in the supposedly empty car park.
I watched him park the bike, turn off the engine, and then roll the machine into the shadows.
I watched him look anxiously down the lane and then check his watch.
Yeah, this was definitely my guy. Too many coincidences for it not to be him. He was not only the guy who had bugged my phone, but he was the goddamn murderer as well.
I could just imagine Lawson’s sweet, innocent sunburned face on Sunday evening.
You met me at the airport? Oh, sir, you shouldn’t have. Well, you can go back to Scotland now, sir; I’ll take over the case. Nah, you’re too late, Lawson. I caught him. He confessed to everything. Ha, ha. Old dog, new tricks, eh, son?
I found that I had been talking to myself during this not-so-internal monologue. Shit, was I tipsier than I thought?
Time for action.
I drew the Glock from the shoulder holster and walked carefully toward him.
“Carrick Police! Put your hands in the air!”
He spun around to look at me.
“Don’t move, arsehole! You’re nicked, mate. You’re bloody nicked. Put your fucking hands in the air. Now! Put your hands in the air or I’m going to bloody shoot you!”
In my experience, criminals generally surrendered when they were confronted by a cop with a drawn gun. It was better to risk your day in court than get shot dead in the here and now, wasn’t it? But this guy was cut from the same cloth as the guys in the caravan park, and I should have foreseen that. Instead of putting his hands in the air, he immediately pulled two semiautomatic pistols from his waistband and shot at me. He was fast and I was momentarily bewitched, but then I hit the bloody deck. And he kept shooting at me. Bullets whizzing all around me in the darkness.
“Jesus!”
The shooting stopped and I looked up. He was running for his motorbike.
“Halt or I will shoot!” I screamed at him.
He kept running.
I returned fire, aiming in his general direction, but I didn’t clip the bastard.
And he’d somehow acquired the only Norton 750 on the planet that kick-started first time.
He sped off down the Knockagh Lane while I scrambled to my feet and fumbled for the keys to the car.
The BMW also started first time, but I had to turn it around to get out of the car park.
I drove down the Knockagh Lane at 50 mph, and when I got to the junction I stopped and listened. No bloody motorbike. Left or right, and whichever one I picked on this cursed night would be the wrong one, wouldn’t it? Left toward Belfast. Right toward the countryside.
Belfast.
I turned left and drove for half an hour, and of course I didn’t find the bike.
Back to Knockagh car park to pick up the shell casings.
How was I going to play this?
Fuck, I was wasted. Shouldn’t be driving. Shouldn’t be handling a gun. I could get dismissed from the force for this.
How to play it?
No choice. Local cops for this little scene, and Special Branch for the phone bug.
I carefully drove home, made a coffee, and drove to the station.
Crabbie was still there.
Still angry with me.
“Do me a favor, Crabbie, and see if you can contact a Superintendent Anthony Clare. He works for Jill Dumont at Special Branch Intel.”
“I’ll look him up,” Crabbie replied.
“When you find him, tell him about the phone bug in my house and get an FO team to the Knockagh Monument. I tried to lure out our suspect, and it didn’t work.”
“You went up to the Knockagh, on a stakeout, by yourself in that condition?”
“What condition’s that?”
“You’re half tore, Sean.”
“Am I?” I asked aggressively.
“Yes. Go on home to bed, Sean, I’ll handle things here. And when you’ve had a night’s kip, I’ll get Special Branch to your house.”
“Nah, no time for kip. Let’s do it now.”
“I think you should go home to your own bed, Sean. For your own good.”
I turned suddenly to look at him. “The fuck do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. Get some rest,” he said placidly.
“You said go home to your own bed. What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. Good night, Sean,” he said, and closed the door and left me standing there in Lawson’s office.
“That bastard. That stuck-up, holier-than-thou Proddy bastard!” I snarled.
I poured myself three fingers of whisky and drank it back neat.
I sat down.
My head was swimming.
I took another shot of whisky and got up. I stormed out of the office, into the incident room. One of the night duty constables scurried away, sensing a blowup. Good instincts.
“Where are you, John?” I yelled.
No answer.
“Where are you!”
Again no answer.
“Hide if you must! And yeah, you handle it, pal. You bloody handle it!” I yelled, and banged the table and stormed out to the Beemer to drive home drunk.
“Maybe I’ll get lucky and skid off the road into the fucking sea,” I said to Mirror Duffy.
But now Mirror Duffy wasn’t even there, the sleekit conniving stupid bastard.