12. The Kill List
CHAPTER 12
THE KILL LIST
I drove back to Coronation Road with more questions than answers. Could the IRA or some other terrorist group really have stolen CIA equipment? Was the American government backing the IRA in some sort of secret arrangement? This seemed very unlikely. President Bush and the British government were tight, but maybe it was a rogue unit or a rogue individual within the CIA.
And would Brendan O’Roarke’s personal hit man really be hiding in a nondescript house in Carrickfergus? And who would have the balls to kill Brendan O’Roarke’s personal hit man, if not an ignorant and foolish teenage joyrider?
Thirty years ago, the Jesuits had explained the concept of Occam’s razor to me. Explained here being a synonym for beat the concept into me with a leather strap: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.
Locke was killed by a couple of hopped-up kids looking for a car. True, he was not a portrait painter but an IRA assassin working for Brendan O’Roarke, but even IRA assassins could have their share of bad luck.
But the motorbike...
And the bug...
I listened to classic FM (late Schubert Lieder, done by the London Symphony Orchestra—excellent) and drank Bass and thought about everything for far too long and then, exhausted, went off to bed.
I found Crabbie at the station early.
I motioned him into Lawson’s office, closed the door, and told him everything I knew.
“Are you sure they’re bugging you?”
“I’m sure. Jill was sure.”
“Could it be that UVF commander who lives on your street? He could have broken into your house and stuck that in your phone.”
“I suppose it could be, but Jill says this is a brand-new piece of tech. Unlikely that he could have got his hands on something like that.”
We mulled ideas and plans over a glass of Islay, but nothing jumped out at us.
“Until I formally call this in to Special Branch, don’t give out any case information over my home phone, okay?” I said.
“Okay. Good idea.”
“And here’s a wee thing I’ve been cooking up: maybe, we can use this to entrap our listeners somehow,” I said vaguely.
“How?”
“Thinking out loud here. You call me and say there’s been a major break in the case at some kind of prepared isolated location. I say great and we drive over there, and we wait for a Norton 750 to show up?”
Crabbie shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said dubiously.
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s shite. But let’s keep it in our back pocket, eh? There must be some way we can use this to our advantage. We’re smart and we’re old hands at this game.”
Another look from McCrabban that did not exactly inspire confidence.
The hour hand slunk around the dial until it pointed to the big “12” at the top. Lunch of shepherd’s pie at Ownies followed by just one pint of the black stuff each.
By four o’clock and with no new developments, I was for heading home. “Well, I guess I’m off, Crabman,” I said. “Coming?”
“I can’t. I’m on duty again—we’ve got those trainees in for the night.”
“What trainees?”
“They weren’t supposed to arrive until after Lawson got back, but they’ve come early.”
“Oh, bollocks. That’s all we need. And we have to look after them?”
“So the chief inspector says.”
I shook my head. “Fuck ’em. This isn’t our job. We’re the invisible men. The part-timers. The old geezers in the corner coming in a few days a month to get their pensions. Banquo and Banquo’s even more banjaxed ghosty friend.”
“The chief inspector had a wee chat with me and said I had to babysit them until Lawson got back.”
“Aye, he would come to you. He knows I’d tell him where to go.”
“Any ideas what to do with them?”
“They’re here right now in the building?” I asked, appalled.
“Aye. That’s them over there,” he said, pointing through the window to a brown-haired woman with glasses, green jeans, and a bright-red sweater. With her were two spotty youths in bad suits and pointy shoes. Both men had had their hair dyed blond and gelled into spikes. One had grown a soul patch.
Crabbie could see my immediate and visceral loathing for them.
“You go home, Sean,” he said quickly. “I’ll think of something to do with them.”
“They’ve got plenty of book learning,” I said. “Now give them some wisdom.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll never forget the last words my grandfather said to me.”
“What did he say?”
“Stop shaking the ladder, you wee shite!”
Crabbie sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t believe he had fallen for this obvious setup. Your guard goes down when you see your mates only seven days a month.
I put on my jacket and walked out to the car. An idea hit me, and I walked back into the incident room, where Crabbie had gathered the newbies for a lecture.
“Sean, what?—”
“How about you take our trainees back to the crime scene. I’ve never been completely satisfied that we found everything that could be found in Locke’s house or at his bloody secret caravan.”
“Fieldwork. Great idea, Sean,” Crabbie said with perhaps faked enthusiasm.
“I mean, just because forensics says they can’t find anything doesn’t mean we have to stop looking, does it?”
“No,” Crabbie agreed.
“Are you Sean Duffy?” the kid with the soul patch asked.
“Yes, I’m Detective Inspector Sean Duffy. You are?”
“William Mitchell.”
The other two felt compelled to tell me their names: Judy something and Patrick something.
“We studied one of your cases on our course,” Mitchell said.
“Oh, really? Which case?” I asked.
“The Carrick Castle murder,” Mitchell said.
“And what did you learn from that case?” Crabbie asked with a ghastly let’s-not-let-this-become-unpleasant fake grin on his face.
“It was an interesting one but, you know, ultimately, Carrick CID let the prime suspect escape,” Mitchell said.
“That’s what they’re bloody teaching you at CID school?” I said, seething. That was how they saw me? That was the sum total of my detective work in the RUC? That I’d bungled a case and let a suspect get away?
“Sean, please, maybe you should head on home,” Crabbie said, ushering me out the door before I could have a stroke.
BMW.
Rain.
Marine Highway.
Home.
Neil Young on the stereo. The one about the silver surfer and the aliens.
Vodka gimlet the Sean Duffy way: pint glass from the freezer, the crushed ice, this time three inches of vodka with the ice, soda, and lime juice.
I was thinking about dinner and wondering how Neil Young got his voice that high when there was a knock at the door.
Rachel, the new neighbor.
“Hi, there. What fresh hell have you come to tell me about now? I’m still reeling from the whole milk-delivery thing.”
“Well, it’s not exactly the last chapter of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but my sink is flooding.”
“Your sink’s flooding?”
“Yup.”
“And you came to me because I’m a man and hence you think I know about blocked sinks and things like that?”
“Exactly.”
Her lovely gray eyes flashed, and a grin spread itself across her face. She vibed Andrea Corr from the Corrs, one of the few pleasant exports from Dundalk.
“I can’t let the side down, can I? Let me see this blocked sink of yours.”
Next door.
Water all over the kitchen floor.
Simple blockage in the U bend. Unscrew the plastic washers, remove the U bend, take out a whole pile of gunk, rescrew the U bend, run the water, hey presto, the sink drains.
“That was impressive,” she said. “The least I can do is invite you for dinner. Unless you have other plans?”
“No other plans tonight. I’d love dinner.”
Spag bol. Standard stuff. Decent red wine from the offy.
The dining room was wallpapered in flowers, and she’d hung a few impressionist posters on the wall. Other than that, she hadn’t done much to the house. Not that there was a whole lot you could do—all the houses on the terrace were identical.
“This is terrific food,” I said. “Do you make this garlic bread?”
“I did. It’s shockingly easy to make. I’m more impressed by the wine. I got this in Carrickfergus! It’s from the Medoc. You can get actually get good plonk now.”
“Oh, yeah? Not much of a wine drinker, to be honest.”
“You’re quite the man, though, aren’t you? Fixing sinks, scaring ruffians off my lawn.”
“That impressed you?” I said self-mockingly. But she appeared to actually be impressed by my seeing off those two-bit skinhead hoods.
“You must have some bad qualities,” she said.
“Oh, yes! I’ve recently begun writing verse in my free time,” I said.
“Yikes! Me too. Let’s avoid that whole minefield, shall we?” she said with a laugh. “I hear you’re a music buff,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Mrs. Campbell says you have the biggest record collection in Carrickfergus.”
“She’s exaggerating. And most of it is in Scotland anyway,” I replied, secretly pleased by this.
“She says someone can play you any record in the world and you’ll know what it is.”
“That’s a complete fabrication.”
“Go on, then. What’s that on the radio in the living room?”
I put down my fork and cocked an ear to Radio 3 coming from the feeble speakers of her ancient stereo.
Shostakovich.
Unmistakable. But which symphony?
She was looking at me, a lovely smile creasing her lips. She was really something. Gray-eyed and long-haired and doughy and feminine, the antithesis of Beth, short-haired, slender.
I took another sip of wine and refilled both our glasses.
The symphony soared and stamped in that way that only Shostakovich can carry off without obvious bombast.
“So, do you know who the composer is? Bear in mind, you could say anything and I wouldn’t know if you were bulshitting me or not.”
I listened to a few more bars. Yeah, of course, it was his tenth symphony. The one Shostakovich wrote after Stalin’s death, or, rather, the one he claimed he’d written after Stalin’s death, although in fact most of it was done by 1951, according to his pupil who became his mistress.
Disappointment flitted across her face as she assumed that I, in fact, didn’t know. It’s a weakness of men—this desire to show off for attractive young women.
You don’t need to do it, Duffy. This is just a nice dinner with the next door neighbor. Eat your food and go, mate. Don’t give in to the bloody weakness. Wise the bap...
She looked glumly down at her plate. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony number Ten, the third movement—the movement where he’s kind of homaging Mahler. And I believe it’s the Berlin Philharmonic with Herbert von Karajan conducting.”
She looked up and grinned. “For real, or are you yanking me?”
The third movement ended, and breaking the between-movements protocol of silence, the Radio 3 continuity announcer reminded listeners what channel they were on and what they were listening to: “It’s just after six-thirty, this is BBC Radio Three, you are listening to the 1981 recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony number Ten, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan.”
She put down her fork and grinned. “Fuck me!” she said.
This was a parlous moment. She was beautiful, and we’d nearly finished the bottle of wine.
“I know you’re brave, I know you’re handy, and now I know you’re clever too!” she said, delighted.
“You don’t have to be clever to know Shostakovich. Just a little bit geeky.”
She reached her hand across the table and rested it on mine.
I let it stay there.
Weak, Duffy, weak.
“You know, there’s something I should tell you. I don’t know why I didn’t mention it the other day, but I’m married. Well, not really married as such. Beth didn’t want a wedding, but it’s as good as and I’ve a daughter, Emma. She’s nearly five.”
Rachel nodded and gave my hand a light squeeze. “I know,” she said. “Mrs. Campbell told me everything about you in exhaustive detail.”
It would be easier, much easier, if Beth had been in one of her moods or if I hadn’t seen her for a week or more. But none of that was the case. I’d seen Beth two days ago and I’d made love to her and I loved her and I therefore had no excuses whatever. None of the excuses men usually give themselves for their flaws.
I walked around the table, and as I did so she stood. I kissed her on the lips and backed her up against the wall.
“Wait,” she said, and whisked our plates and the wine bottle from the kitchen table. She lifted her skirt and pushed herself against me. I was hard as a rock.
She wanted me to fuck her on the kitchen table.
Jesus Christ, I’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity like this.
I unzipped my fly and kissed her again. Kissed her big, full beautiful breasts and her soft white belly. She was gorgeous.
She was incredible.
This was a?—
I heard the noise of a doorbell above the Shostakovich.
“Come on,” she said.
I stopped and listened.
The doorbell again.
I slipped off the table, zipped up my fly. “There’s someone at my door,” I said.
“Forget it, for fucksake!”
I took out the Glock, walked down the hall, and opened her front door. I looked across the porch to #113 Coronation Road.
Crabbie was standing there with one of the new Scooby gang. He saw me. I lowered the Glock.
“Sean? I tried calling. I couldn’t reach you.”
“I was having dinner over here. What’s up?”
“We found something at the caravan site. Something you should see.”
Rachel appeared behind me.
I could feel the utter fury radiating from her.
I turned to her. “I have to go. I?—”
“Go, then,” she said.
I stepped over the fence between the houses while the door banged shut behind me.
“Will we take my car?” I suggested.
“Brought a police Land Rover. You’ll probably need to put some shoes on,” Crabbie said coldly.
I grabbed a pair of sneakers and got in the front of the Land Rover with him while the new trainee detective sat in the back. Crabbie said nothing. He approved of Beth. She was a Presbyterian, a schoolteacher. She had given me a beautiful, precocious daughter. She had cooked dinner for him and his wife. She had invited him to her house, and we had all broken bread together there. And even if none of that had been true, it wouldn’t have mattered. He liked her.
I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror, and he looked away immediately.
I’d never seen him so pissed off at me.
“Mind if I turn on the radio?” I said meekly.
“Suit yourself.”
I found Radio 3 and got the last bars of the Shostakovich, which was sublime stuff but it didn’t cheer me up one bit. Made it worse, in fact. Turned it off.
Silence all the way to the caravan site, and then the rain came on again.
The other trainee detectives were waiting for us, standing outside in the wet like bloody idiots. The one with the glasses looked as if they’d fished her out of the river.
I got out and took a hit off my inhaler.
The rain immediately pouring down the neck of my leather jacket.
“Evening, all,” I said to the trainees. They were all so young, none of them got the Dixon of Dock Green reference.
“This way, Detective Inspector Duffy,” Crabbie said, and I followed him across the muddy campsite to Locke’s caravan.
“You found something that the FO team missed?” I asked, amazed.
“Young Jamie found it,” Crabbie said.
“In the toaster. He kept it in the toaster,” the one with the soul patch said.
Kept what? I wondered, but when I got into the caravan Crabbie showed it to me next to the toaster, nice and safe inside an evidence bag.
It was a piece of A4 paper on which a dozen names and addresses had been written.
I recognized several of the names as senior Republican players, politicians, and activists. Most of them were either IRA or ex-IRA. Some were very prominent people indeed, including ****** ********** and ***** ***** and ***** ******.
“What is this?” one of the trainees asked.
“It’s a kill list,” I said.
Crabbie nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Ask the kids to go wait in the Land Rover,” I said.
Crabbie ushered them to the Land Rover and came back to the caravan, where I was sitting down at the Formica table.
“This will have to go to Special Branch,” I said. “They will have to warn everyone on this list that a possible IRA hit man has their name and address.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“You know what Special Branch are like. They might subsume our entire investigation.”
“So be it.”
“What I mean is, they’ll take over and we’ll be back to the part-time reserve.”
“I understand what you mean, Sean. I’m not an idiot.”
“I never said you were.”
“No, but you’ve thought it many times.”
I looked at him. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Tell me I’m a liar.”
“You’re a liar.”
He gave me a hard stare for fifteen seconds, then lifted up the evidence bag. “Special Branch will have to be informed immediately. Do you want a lift back to the house?”
“I’m not walking.”
“I’ll give you a lift home, then.”
“You’ll report this to Special Branch?” I asked.
“Of course. It would be dereliction of duty not to. These people have to be informed that they’ve been potentially targeted.”
Crabbie drove me back to Coronation Road.
Cold shoulder the whole way.
“Thanks, mate. Hopefully, our betters will sort this one out, eh?”
Crabbie said nothing.
I made to close the Land Rover door, and he gave his head the slightest of shakes.
“Wait a minute, Sean,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“You got very, very lucky when you met Beth.”
“I know.”
“She’s a good woman. A handsome woman. Good natured. And a good mother to your daughter.”
“I know.”
“And a teacher too.”
“Yes.”
“Saved your wee bairn when they came to kill you that night. Took her in her arms and fled like a good ’un.”
“I know. What’s your point?”
“You really couldn’t have gotten any luckier than that, Sean.”
He’d worn me down, and my eyes fell from him and stared at the oil and cigarette butts in the gutter.
“Nothing really happened, Crabbie. Not really. It could have... but...”
“See that it stays that way,” he said, and leaning over, he closed the Land Rover door with a bang so loud that it startled half the mutts on Coronation Road.
I walked up the path.
When Crabbie had gone, I went over the fence and knocked on the door.
Rachel came downstairs in her nightgown.
“Listen, I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”
“I am too.”
“Duty calls, all that, you know?”
“Yes, I know.”
She looked at me closely. “So do you want to?—”
“Nah, I should...”
“Yes, good night,” she said, and she kind of slammed the door too.
I went inside number 113.
I called home, but Emma was clearly having sleep issues and Beth had disconnected the phone. Fuck.
I called my parents in Donegal, but Da was in his bed and Mum was watching a “fascinating program on the Open University about the Chartists.”
Who else was there to call?
Crabbie was out of the question, and Lawson was in bloody Spain.
Who else was there?
Nobody.
That’s what happens when your friendship circle narrows and narrows.
I looked through my records, but I wasn’t in the mood for music.
I sat in the armchair by the fire and poured myself four inches of sixteen-year-old Bowmore.
No point thinking about stupid me. That was a deep well of foolishness to explore, available anytime.
The case, then...
Why would a deep-cover IRA hit man have only the names and addresses of other IRA men? What the fuck was going on within the IRA? Was it something to do with O’Roarke’s quest for a harder line within the Army Council?
Could he really be plotting a Night of the Long Knives?
Would Special Branch notice the nuance of all this?
Supposedly, Special Branch was the smartest and best of the RUC. But in practice, they had just as many time wasters and fuck-ups as the rest of the police force.
I was on to my third glass of Bowmore when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Duffy. Is that you?” the chief inspector asked.
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay, Sean?”
Clearly, I’d been slurring my words. Was I drunk? I looked at the Bowmore bottle. Christ, it was a third gone.
“Slight cold, sir. That’s all.”
“You want to watch that. Summer colds are the worst ones of all.”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
“I got a call from a Superintendent Clare over at Special Branch. He said that Jill Dumont had ordered him to take an advisory role in this case. That’s Chief Super Jill Dumont, in case you didn’t know who she is.”
I considered hanging up immediately. Chief Inspector McArthur didn’t know about the phone bug, and he could blab about the case to my eavesdropper. And McArthur was a blabber, but even half-drunk, I could handle the bastard. Better than hanging up, I’d just intercept him.
“Yes, sir, I contacted Special Branch. This is potentially a Special Branch affair. By the way, did they tell you about the protocols?”
“What protocols?”
“Well, because of the sensitive nature of the document that we found, they’ve imposed strict confidentiality on the investigation. We, uhm, well, we’re not even supposed to be discussing this at all.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so, sir. You know what they’re like.”
“I bloody do! They’re all up themselves, aren’t they? Those bastards. What are we allowed to discuss, pray tell?”
“Only the murder case, sir.”
“And any progress with that?”
And maybe it was the booze. Or maybe it was... no, it was the booze...
“Actually, I’m meeting an informant tonight who claims to be able to ID our shooter.”
“An informant! That’s brilliant. Well done, Duffy.”
“It might turn out to be nothing, but you never know, do you?”
“No, you don’t. Where are you meeting this informant, if I may ask?”
“The Knockagh Monument at the top of Knockagh Mountain. One a.m. I figure no one else will be up there at that time.”
“Not on a night like this,” McArthur agreed.
“Like I say, sir, it might turn out to be nothing, but you never know.”
“Want any help? My in-laws?—”
“No, sir! Don’t want to spook him. He only works with me.”
“All right, Duffy, good luck. Fill me in, in the morning, yes?”
“I will. Good night, sir.”
I hung up. The clock in the hall said it was 12:15. I grabbed my Glock, a pair of binoculars, and a raincoat.
I ran out to the Beemer and looked underneath it for mercury tilt switch bombs. Nope.
I got inside, turned on the John Peel show, and listened to a very hit-or-miss set from the new line-up of the Fall.
I gunned the Beemer along the top road, to the North Road. Up the North Road to the Marshallstown Road and then at a healthy 95 mph clip to the Knockagh Road.
I caught Duffy’s eyes in the rearview.
Was this a smart thing to do?
Mirror Duffy was fine with it. Mirror Duffy had had a third of a bottle of whisky and was a complex blend of emotions: guilt, anger, remorse, and humiliation. Mirror Duffy wanted you to take action, and this was action.
That’s why you didn’t tell McArthur about the bug. Because a move like this was in the back of your mind. You were always going to play this. Break this case wide open tonight, motherfucker.
This wasn’t just the booze talking.
No. Not at all. This was the smart play. Completely self-defeating to call in backup. They’d only fuck it up. The eejits down the station? Forget it. Those goons at the DMSU and Special Branch? Amateurs. The only man Mirror Duffy trusted was Crabbie, and nobody wanted to drag him into this.
Solo Duffy it would have to be. Like the bad old days.