Hang on St. Christopher (The Sean Duffy #8)

18. The Interview

CHAPTER 18

THE INTERVIEW

Cue the dramatic music. The low clouds. Cold north air like a lens of ice. The sun a yellow goblin glow in the east. (Yes, it was still July.) Two Land Rovers in convoy heading for the border. Two incongruous white police Tangi Land Rovers on a country road, driving through the treeless iron starkness of the Mourne Mountains.

Cows, sheep, boggy fields, bleak moorland, stone walls.

Raptors following our progress and curving through the hill country on easy thermals.

Morrigan one of those raptors.

Morrigan the crow.

Goddess of fertility. Goddess of war.

The song of the armor plate. The song of the specially reinforced police Land Rovers’ tires. The whir and throb of the fuel-injected eight-cylinder engines. If you could taste a song, this song would taste of blood, sulfur, saltpeter, and, of course, fear.

We were wearing civilian clothes but with flak jackets over the top. We were armed with sidearms and had access to MP5s. This was no joke.

We drove down in convoy on the B219, to the border crossing west of Newry.

Crabbie and I were driving Land Rover 1 with Lawson, two of our trainees (DC William Mitchell and DC Judy McGuire) in the back. The second Land Rover contained DS Anthony Clare and DCI Stan Preston up front, and DI Siobhan McGuinness and DI Michael O’Leary in the back.

I’d been against bringing the trainees, but Chief Inspector McArthur told Lawson he thought it was a good idea, and Lawson didn’t want to go against him when he could easily have yanked me out of this little op in the first place. And he was probably right. Good experience for them. Trip over the border. Insight into Garda procedure. A chance to interview a genuine, honest-to-God monster.

As additional security, we were escorted to the border by two armored army Land Rovers, although they would not be allowed to continue down over the border itself. When a British army patrol slipped over the border into the Republic of Ireland without permission, it always ignited an international incident.

The radio crackled, “Border approaching, two hundred yards.”

The army Land Rovers pulled over.

The Northern Ireland–Republic of Ireland border had many formal crossing points and many more informal crossing points. We’d decided to cross at one of the informal roads to avoid the border traffic.

We were met on the other side of the imaginary line by an Irish police Range Rover driven by Inspector O’Neill.

We stopped, and I made the necessary introductions.

“Inspector O’Neill, may I introduce Superintendent Clare of Special Branch...”

Et cetera.

We all stood around the border looking like idiots for a minute. “Well, shall we go?” Superintendent Clare asked.

“Yes, let’s go.”

We arrived at Dundalk Garda at ten in the morning.

The interview was supposed to start at lunchtime but we got a call from O’Roarke’s lawyers saying that their client had been delayed until two p.m.

We had cheese-and-pickle sandwiches at the station and kicked our heels.

At two p.m., we got a phone call from O’Roarke’s lawyers saying that their client was at a construction site and wouldn’t be able to make it until five.

At 5:15, we got a call saying that their client was having dinner with his family and now wouldn’t be in until six. At 6:05, we got a call saying that O’Roarke was on the way, and at 6:30 we got a call stating that he would be at the station at 7:30.

He actually arrived at eight.

It was completely childish, dicking us about like that. Classier paramilitary commanders wouldn’t have done it, but judging from the shit-eating grin on O’Roarke’s face as he walked in, he loved it.

The interview room was too small to accommodate all the cops and all the lawyers, so we adjourned to a conference room. And there around a big oval table sat O’Roarke with two Dublin lawyers, Inspector O’Neill, me, Lawson, Crabbie, DS Clare, DCI Preston, DI O’Leary, DI McGuinness, and our two trainees standing at the back with a couple of Garda officers.

Everyone was wearing a proper suit or a uniform except O’Roarke and me. He was dressed as Farmer Giles in flat cap, tweed jacket, shirt, wellie boots, and tweed trousers. I was in my leather jacket, jeans, and lucky Che Guevara T-shirt.

O’Neill explained that O’Roarke was not under arrest but had asked to come here today to help the police with their inquiries. O’Neill started a tape recorder, and immediately one of the lawyers objected.

“No tape or videotape that may be used to incriminate my client,” he said in an accent almost as posh as Superintendent Clare’s.

O’Neill tried to protest, but I didn’t mind.

“We don’t need the tape; we just want answers,” I said.

O’Roarke looked directly at me. “We meet again, Inspector Sean Duffy of Derry, currently working for Carrickfergus RUC.”

“We do indeed.”

“So, what is all this about?” he asked me.

“Two people working for you were both murdered in Greater Belfast in the past week. What it’s about is the deaths of Alan Locke and Eileen Cavanagh.”

“I knew Alan a bit. He did some artwork for me a few years ago. He was in our bowling club. I don’t know this Eileen Cavanagh.”

“She called you a dozen times in the past month.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She called you at the pay phone at the bowling club.”

“The pay phone?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone can call that pay phone. I’d like to see you prove that she called me.”

“You’ve used the pay phone at the bowling club. We’ve photographs of you on that phone,” O’Neill said.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” the other lawyer said. “You have no proof linking these two deceased individuals with my client.”

“Aye, I don’t know anything about any of that,” O’Roarke said.

“Mr. O’Roarke, these two people who were clearly working for you have been killed. We would like to know why. If they’ve killed Locke and Cavanagh, who’s to say you might not be next?” I suggested.

“I barely knew these people. They’ve got nothing to do with me,” O’Roarke muttered.

“We believe that they were both hit men,” Clare said. “And we think they might have been in Belfast under your orders.”

The lawyers were outraged by this suggestion. Mr. O’Roarke was a respected businessman. He had nothing to do with the IRA or hit men or anything like that.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the Sunday World ,” O’Roarke said. “I’m just a businessman. I keep my nose out of politics. I don’t know these people.”

“You waked Alan Locke,” I said.

“The bowling club waked him. He was a club member.”

“Come on, Brendan, don’t you see that we’re trying to help you here? People are bumping off your guys. Eventually, they are going to move up the chain,” I said.

O’Roarke laughed. “Very dramatic, I’m sure. But it’s got nothing to do with me. I build houses. That’s all.”

“Then, why did you agree to this interview?” I asked.

“I always like to cooperate with the police. You seemed really anxious to talk to me, so I thought I would give you the opportunity. But this wild-goose chase of yours is really a bit too much for me. Youse have all got a great imagination, so youse have.”

“You’ve got nothing to contribute to the case?” Clare asked, exasperated.

“I don’t see how I could, since I never met Eileen and I don’t really know Alan Locke that well.”

Brendan poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on the table and smiled at us all again.

“You’re not getting the big picture, Brendan. Don’t you see what’s happening, here?” I asked him in Irish.

“What’s happening?” Brendan replied in Irish that wasn’t quite as good as mine.

“Your killers are being killed. Whatever coup de main you were planning against your pals in the IRA is being snuffed out before it gets going,” I continued.

“What are you talking about?”

“You sent at least two of your best people north as sleeper agents. Waiting for your orders to execute a plan. But someone has betrayed you. Someone has found out about that plan. You’ve been outgeneraled. They’ve killed your soldiers and they’re going to be coming for you next,” I said in English.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But if you help us, we can stop this war before it gets started.”

“You don’t know anything, Duffy. You’re a fucking amateur. A part-time policeman who is swimming in very dangerous waters,” Brendan said.

“My client does not imply—” one of the lawyers began before Brendan cut him off with a gesture.

“I certainly appreciate the warning and your concern for my safety,” I said.

“Who said I had any concern for a fucking traitor who has taken the king’s shilling?” Brendan said, leaning across the table toward me. “You disgust me. You are worse than the Brits; you are worse than the Prods; you are the lowest form of fucking life there is. A Catholic in the police. A parasite who betrays his own. Now, why don’t you fuck off back to Belfast, the whole lot of you!”

His old-man jowls were seething with hatred and anger. He was practically shaking. It was disconcerting to see an older man lose it like this. What was the source of his hate? He hadn’t lost any kids to the war. He had a brother in jail and a brother on the run in France, but so the fuck what? He was rich, healthy, respected (or, if not exactly respected, at least feared).

It was strange. I had much more cause to hate than he. They’d tried to kill me and my wife and child. Assassins sent by the Army Council of the Provisional IRA. They had tried to shoot me and threatened to burn me alive. But I didn’t hate him or his brothers. Or any of them.

“Why are you still here?” he asked incredulously. When dismissed from his presence, people normally got the hell away from him as fast as they could.

“I was wondering how an old man such as yourself keeps the hate burning inside you. You’re shaking. There’s spittle on your chin. It’s not dignified.”

“How dare you speak to me of?—”

“I’ll speak to you any way I like, Brendan of the Long Arm. Coimhead fearg fhear na foighde. ”

“This from the man who works for Thatcher!”

“You have to keep up with current events, Brendan. Thatcher’s gone. It’s Major now.”

“It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. We all know who’s calling the shots. It’s Cromwell come again to Ireland. You know it and I know it. She’s worse than Cromwell. She’s Hitler come again,” O’Roarke said.

I rolled my eyes and said nothing. This was getting us nowhere. Why was it, in conversations with these people, it always came back to the Easter Rising, the famine, or Cromwell?

“Mrs. Thatcher is not Hitler,” Superintendent Clare was saying, getting sucked in like a bloody idiot.

“That’s what they said about Hitler!” Brendan replied.

I couldn’t take much more of this. I got to my feet. “Really? Of Hitler they said he’s not Hitler? That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Brendan stood too. He pointed his finger at Clare and me and the rest of us. “I don’t know how youse can look in the mirror shaving in the morning. Traitors, the lot of you. Planter scum! Fucking Proddy planter scum!”

“I usually shave at night,” Crabbie said deadpan. “No time in the morning, what with the cows and everything.”

It was hard to tell with Crabbie whether he was just trying to wind Brendan up. But it tipped Brendan over the edge into a kind of madness. A teppichfresser -ing madness, if you want to continue the Hitler analogy. He was bug-eyed and almost literally foaming at the mouth. He banged the table so hard, the water pitcher jumped and fell on its side.

“Interview terminated,” one of the lawyers said, and, with some difficulty, escorted Brendan O’Roarke from the room.

After he and his flunkies had left, a still, uncomfortable silence descended on the conference room, punctuated only by the dripping of water from the table to the floor.

“I thought that went well,” I said.

“Better than I was expecting, sir,” Lawson said, catching my mood.

“Yes, definitely one of the scarier individuals I’ve met this year,” I admitted fifteen minutes later in the pub next door to the police station.

We all sipped our pints and nodded in agreement. In fact, “met this year” was only scholarly caution on my part. He was one of the scariest hardmen I’d ever met. There was nothing but animal hate behind those black eyes of his. The scariest eyes I’d seen in a long time, and I’d met Jimmy Savile and had to throw Roger Waters out of a bar once.

We got a few more beers in and swapped cop stories, and it was close to midnight when we left Dundalk, exhausted, defeated, frustrated.

Get used to those emotions, my little trainee detective chums; they’re going to become very familiar to you over the next twenty-five years of your career in the RUC.