21. The Aftermath
CHAPTER 21
THE AFTERMATH
Two Land Rovers blown up and utterly destroyed. One man dead. You’d think that the press would see this as a disaster; but in fact, for reasons I was too stupid to understand, the local papers were portraying it as an IRA failure and something of a police triumph.
I didn’t think it was much of a triumph with a man’s guts spilled out over the countryside. And it was only relative failure compared to, say, the Warrenpoint Massacre, which took place in 1979 just two miles from where we were hit. In that incident, the IRA's South Armagh Brigade had ambushed a British army convoy with two large roadside Semtex-and-fertilizer bombs. That had been a classic guerrilla operation. The first bomb targeted a British army lorry, and the second targeted the rescue personnel sent in to deal with the first incident. IRA men in a nearby wood opened up with machine guns on the arriving troops and medics. Eighteen soldiers had been killed in that op, and another dozen seriously wounded.
That was a triumphant day for the IRA.
The killing of one RUC chief inspector? It made the headlines in the Belfast Telegraph , the Newsletter, and Irish News but didn’t even make it into the first five stories on the BBC news, nor did it make it onto the front pages of any of the English tabloid papers.
Of course, there would be an inquiry four or five months from now. We’d all show up in our shiny dress uniforms and give whatever official version we’d been told to give. Not the truth. Never the truth.
And I knew what was going to happen to the remains of our case. A case like this that involved the killing of a Special Branch detective could not possibly be handled in any way by a part-time CID detective out of a provincial station like Carrickfergus RUC.
Discharged from the City Hospital with only cuts and bruises, I put on a suit and tie and went into the station to await my certain fate.
The fate arrived later that day when Superintendent Clare came by to see me with several new young protégés. I didn’t even bother to get their names.
“That was quite something, wasn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah, it was.”
“Amazing, really, that more people weren’t killed.”
“Well, one’s enough, surely?”
“I’m so glad your team made it out, safely.”
I had two ways to go here. I could say “yeah” and leave it at that, or I could piss off a Special Branch superintendent by stirring shit: Where the fuck did you go, pal? What the fuck were you doing?
Crabbie was doing his old telepathy trick and giving me a slight shake of the head. Let it lie, Sean. It’s all over and done with.
“Pity about Chief Inspector Preston,” I said.
“Yes. He was a good man. But it could have been a lot worse, couldn’t it?”
“I suppose it could, but like I said, one death is enough.”
Clare frowned. The local press had lauded Superintendent Clare and me for leading our respective Land Rover crews to safety. Superintendent Clare’s picture had appeared in the Newsletter, and his bravery commented on.
I couldn’t blame him for Preston’s death, but as far as I could see, he had abandoned his people “to go and get help.”
Help that never arrived.
“Yeah, we made it out safely,” I said, and then after a long pause added, “No thanks to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Clare said icily.
“You don’t abandon people under your command,” I said equally coldly.
“I didn’t abandon anyone. I went to get assistance.”
An icy silence.
Crabbie saying nothing.
Clare saying nothing.
I thought about the future.
Twenty-five months until I could leave the RUC with a full pension. Twenty-six months until Crabbie could leave with a full pension.
Clare was a coward and a liar, but he was a superintendent being groomed to be the poster boy for all the Catholic coppers on the force. He was important, and we were... we were nothing.
This was the crucial moment. The moment when I took this further or shut my mouth. The silence was so thick and moldy, you could cut it with a rusty penknife.
Frank Serpico had given a talk at the Royal Hotel in Glasgow a year before that I’d attended with a few Strathclyde Constabulary friends. He’d begun his talk with a quote from Burke: “In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing.”
But our pensions... the future...
I took a breath, sighed.
“Of course. Yes, sir, you went to get help,” I muttered at last.
“I didn’t abandon anyone,” he said.
He knew that I knew he had run. But he also knew that I wasn’t going to do a damn thing about it. So who was the real coward here? The man who runs away from a gun fight to save his life, or the man who keeps quiet to save his bloody pension?
I looked down at the table. “No, sir, sorry, I misspoke.”
Clare nodded slowly.
“I’m glad we got that sorted out. There will be an inquiry, of course. A man died, but since you’re based in Scotland now, Inspector Duffy, I don’t think it’ll even be necessary to make you come over for a long and tedious set of hearings.”
I wasn’t even going to get to speak at the official inquiry? An inquiry into an ambush of two RUC Land Rovers across the border? Where a policeman had died?
“How will that work, exactly?”
“You’ll make a statement and it will be read into the official record. There won’t be any need to drag you away from your comfortable home over the water.”
So the fix was in already. Exonerations for everyone—hell, maybe even commendations for everyone.
“No, I suppose not,” I said.
“And now I probably should come to the real purpose of my visit here today. As you’re probably aware, Special Branch has assumed full responsibility for all aspects of this investigation.”
“I know.”
“We have all the physical evidence, but I’ll need those Picasso paintings as well. They’re evidence and they’re not in the property room.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Too valuable for the property room. They’ll get knocked about in there.”
“Where are they?”
“I’ve got them in storage.”
“Bring them over today or tomorrow at the latest while my men are packing up the last of the evidence boxes. We don’t want any hint of impropriety.”
“What sort of hint of impropriety?”
He could see I was still spoiling for a fight, so he didn’t press it. This son of a bitch implying that I would steal a dead man’s paintings? Who did he bloody think he was?
Although...
He had a few more words.
Boilerplate nonsense.
I listened, let him talk, let him go, watched through the incident room window as he drove away.
I went into the chief inspector’s office. “Is the case resolved to your satisfaction? Because if it is, I’m going back to Scotland,” I said.
“You removed it from our books, and that’s what counts.”
No convictions, no resolution, no answers, but it was removed from the books.
I went back to Coronation Road, took the Picassos off the wall of my living room, and drove up to Archie Simmons’s house.
He opened the door suspiciously. “What do you want now?”
“Can I come in?”
“I suppose so.”
I went inside with the Picassos under my arm. He looked at them and said nothing. I sat down on the sofa in his living room and put the Picassos on the coffee table.
“Cup of tea?” he asked.
“No thanks. Time is of the essence. I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Go on, then.”
“How much to make a couple of copies of these? Really good copies that look like the originals.”
“How much are you willing to pay?”
“How much to do the copies?”
“Shall we say, five hundred quid each?”
“You’re joking. Five hundred for both.”
“Eight hundred for the pair.”
“Let’s split the difference and say seven.”
“Seven-fifty.”
“Done. Can you have them made by the end of the day?”
“Impossible!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“What do you mean, impossible? I’ve seen how fast you work, mate.”
“This is a metal etching, not a painting.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an engraving onto metal. It’s a whole process. You have to cut the engraving, then do the acid bath, then do the prints themselves. It’s not something you knock out in an afternoon.”
“How long will it take?”
“If you want to get it as close to the originals as possible, I’ll have to experiment with the colors and the process and?—”
“How long?”
“A week.”
I shook my head. There was no way I could hold off Special Branch for a week.
“Could you have it done by tomorrow afternoon if there was an extra hundred quid in it for you? Eight hundred and fifty quid altogether.”
Archie shook his head. But he didn’t say no.
I opened up my wallet and counted out seventeen fifty-pound notes. I put them down on the coffee table in the living room.
“I’d have to work all day and all night,” he said.
I put three more fifties on the coffee table.
“That’s a thousand quid.”
His eyes took on a malevolent glint. “You’re a bad man, Sean Duffy. What are you up to?”
“Never you mind. Can you do this for me or not?”
“I can do it. I have everything I need here. I’ve done the process before for a few wee jobs here and there.”
“Exact copies, or as exact as you can make them.”
“I’m good, Duffy. That’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”
I went back to Coronation Road and called Portpatrick and told Beth I was booked on the six p.m. ferry tomorrow. She was thrilled.
I hadn’t even told her about the gun battle. Maybe she’d never find out about it. The story hadn’t made the Scottish papers, and she didn’t get the Newsletter or the Belfast Telegraph . It was possible her parents would read the story, and if they did, I’d tell her that the whole thing was exaggerated by the press, as usual.
“Is your case finished, then? Did you find the murderer?” she asked.
“No. Special Branch have taken over the investigation. But that’s almost as good as the real thing.”
A day to kill. I drove to Belfast and talked to Terry in Good Vibrations, but he was depressed about the musical direction of the planet, and not in good form.
“Don’t you like the stuff coming out of Seattle?” I asked him.
“I’m supposed to be impressed because they finally get punk fifteen years after everyone else?”
“It’s not quite punk, Terry; it’s its own thing. Beth and I saw Nirvana at the...”
But Terry wasn’t listening. Terry’s method was to discourage new customers by mocking their musical tastes, and to alienate his old customers by telling them they had gone soft in the head for listening to the propaganda of A and R men and John Peel...
Back to Carrick.
I dined alone at a new Indian restaurant out on the Belfast Road that was pretty good.
Sleep. Bed.
Next morning, the Special Branch team was still packing up the boxes, but they were nearly done.
I drove to Archie’s house.
“Do you have those Picassos?”
“Yes, but they’re not completely dry yet.”
“I need them now.”
Blow-dryer.
Archie not happy: “This is a farce, so it is. It’s humiliating. Unprofessional.”
I took the fakes to the station. Clare was there for the last of the stuff and the signing of forms.
I gave him the fake only-just-dried Picassos.
“Extraordinary,” he said. “They look so fresh.”
“Yeah, well, don’t put your big grubby fingers on them. Apparently, they’re worth a few grand each.”
“More than that, surely.”
“No, they’re just prints. He did hundreds of them. I want a bloody receipt for these. I wouldn’t want to see a profile of Chief Constable Anthony Clare in the Belfast Telegraph and notice these behind him on the wall in his living room,” I said with a jocular tone.
But not that jocular.
“I’ll type it for you,” he said.
“When? I’m leaving today.”
“Hold your horses. I’ll do it now if you want.”
“Please.”
I took the CID-headed paper and put it in the typewriter.
Transfer from CID Property Room Carrickfergus RUC to custody of Special Branch. Receipt for two Picasso etchings. Vollard Suite B.162. Signed by the artist.
Clare signed it, and I photocopied the receipt and made him sign the photocopy too.
We said our goodbyes.
When the Special Branch men were gone, Crabbie gave me a funny look.
“You’re up to something. I can always tell when you’re up to something.”
“I’m not up to anything. I just wanted to see those pictures safely taken out of our hands.”
I gave him a big hug, which he, of course, hated.
“I’ve a ferry to catch. I’ll see you next month, mate, okay?”
If Lawson didn’t need us, it would be back to traffic and admin for the pair of us. But that was okay. One month closer to a pension.
“If we’re in on the same days, you’ll come up to the house, won’t you? Helen always enjoys having you over, and the boys miss their Uncle Sean.”
“Dinner? I’ll do it.”
He stared at me and put his big, meaty paw on my shoulder.
“I know you, Sean.”
“I know you do.”
“I think I know you as good as anyone.”
“That might be right.”
He shook his head. “It’s over, Sean. It’s not our case anymore. It was never going to be our case. As soon as it got complicated, it was always going to get kicked upstairs.”
“So what?—”
“So you have to let it go. You have to promise that you won’t go back to Dundalk or do anything else stupid.”
“I’m on the ferry tonight, mate. Finito.”
“Good. I’ll see you next month.”
Touching, that.
Crabbie worried about me.
Crabbie worried that Sean Duffy was going to do a Sean Duffy. But what could I do, exactly?
I went in to say goodbye to Lawson.
“I’m off. I’ll maybe see you next month.”
“Oh, sir, uhm, you left two bottles of liquor...”
“You’re head of CID, Alex. When someone senior comes in your office, you offer them a drink. That’s what men do. Okay? Keep those bottles, and when a higher-up comes in, offer them a drink. I should have told you this before now.”
He nodded. “Thank you, sir, I’ll do that... Are you off to Scotland?”
“Aye.”
“And the Locke case?”
“A good old SEP.”
“Someone else’s problem?”
“Exactly.”
I drove down to Larne and caught the ferry.
Larne to Stranraer.
Stranraer to Portpatrick.
I saw the next door neighbor I had beaten the shit out of a year earlier. He had another new car. Protective of his cars, this bloke.
He saw me.
“How do?” I asked.
“Okay.”
“New car?”
“Aye, but I don’t mind if it gets the odd scrape. It’s only wheels to get around in, after all, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
I went inside and distributed hugs and presents.
Later, after dinner.
“I saw our neighbor outside. He’s got a new car. Everything all right now with him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I saw the new car. I remember what happened last year, so I took preemptive action,” she said.
“Did you?”
“Yes. I said I hope I don’t hit your car again! And he laughed. And then he came over in the afternoon. He couldn’t have been nicer. He brought a big bunch of flowers, and a Lisa Simpson doll for Em. Remember last year, you wanted to threaten him?”
You don’t know this, honey, but I nearly fucking killed him.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Threatening people isn’t always the answer. Some people are just nice. They make a mistake and they realize it’s a mistake, you know?”
“I’m very glad. Oh, I almost forgot. I got something for the living room. That space opposite the fireplace.”
“What?”
“I think you’ll like this.”
“What is it?”
I went to the car and brought in the Picassos. “Original Picasso screen-prints. Got them from an old friend.”
Beth’s face lit up.
“Originals! Aren’t they worth millions?” she said suspiciously.
“No. Unfortunately not. He made a couple of hundred in this series, so they’re not worth that much. Still, lovely, aren’t they?”
“Yes. And they’ll look terrific in your den, I think. They’re a bit too scandalous to put above the fireplace in the living room.”
Later still, after Beth and Emma had gone to bed.
I looked at the Picassos on the wall.
I had no guilt about it.
Locke had no next of kin. It would go to the Special Branch property room, where it would remain for two or three years while Clare’s investigations got nowhere.
They’d lie in that property room for years until someone nicked them or they got destroyed.
Eventually, ten years from now, some eejit clerk at Special Branch might remember them and they’d get auctioned, and the money would go to the Treasury.
Fuck the Treasury.
And fuck Special Branch.
And fuck this case.