16. The Second Murder
CHAPTER 16
THE SECOND MURDER
Saturday morning. Coffee. Toast. News on the radio. Overnight, the IRA had left a truck bomb in front of the Europa Hotel in Belfast and blown it up. They’d given a twenty-minute warning, which was sufficient time to evacuate the area, and there had been no casualties. This was the ninth time the Europa Hotel had been blown up since the Troubles began. The second time this year. Anywhere else, this would be a huge news story, but it was story number four on the radio.
Still, it reminded me of something. A wee task I had to take care of.
The last time they’d blown up the Europa, one of the chickenshit details I’d been given was to accompany a DHSS officer to make a notification. The DHSS were cutting some kid off unemployment because he’d been caught working on the Europa bomb site—on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph, no less. But the kid lived in a tough neighborhood, and the DHSS were scared about going there in person to tell him. Hence the cops. Hence me.
We’d found the kid’s house easily. He was a loner who lived with his gran in the worst neighborhood in Rathcoole, poor sod. An old lady had answered. “Yes?”
“We’re looking for Michael Forsythe.”
“Michael, it’s the police for you.”
Forsythe: skinny, handsome, flighty, with wild, dangerous blue eyes. He’d do well as a paramilitary chieftain of whatever side he chose to join. Better to keep him in regular employment, not cut him off the dole... But what did the DHSS care about the long-term good of society? The DHSS officer had informed him that he could either sign off dole forever or face prosecution. Forsythe chose the former path. Satisfied, the DHSS officer split, but I stayed and drank the old lady’s tea. I, for one, wasn’t going to let this kid fall through the cracks. “What will you do now, son?” I’d asked.
“I can’t go back in the army, can I?”
“Why? What happened to you in the army?”
“I stole a truck and they chucked me out.”
“Aye, that’ll do it.”
“And there are no jobs over here.”
There certainly were no jobs over here.
“Look, I’m really sorry about this. It’s bloody bad luck to get yourself on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph and have your benefit officer read it, and that benefit officer be a total bastard. Do you have any prospects at all?” I asked.
“I have a friend in America. In New York. He says he can get me a job.”
“Doing what?”
“Bar work.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ve money saved, but I need another hundred and fifty quid for my tourist visa and ticket.”
“You’re going to work on a tourist visa? Isn’t that?—”
“It’s what everybody does.”
“Oh, okay... A hundred and fifty quid, you said?”
He nodded. I opened my wallet and peeled off five twenties and a fifty.
“For real?”
“For real. But please don’t make a fool out of me. I don’t want to see you next week in the Dobbins having a big piss up with your mates.”
“I won’t. I’ll go to America. I’ll work for Darkey White. Will you do me a favor, though? Will you look in on my nan from time to time?”
“Sure.”
And after that, I forgot all about Michael Forsythe until this morning. A promise is a promise. I dressed, drove to Rathcoole, and called in on his nan. She was a sprightly old lady who went to church, kept flowerpots, and baked. I asked her how she was doing, and she said that she was doing well.
“How’s your grandson in America?”
“He’s doing very well, so he is. He has his own flat and everything.”
“That’s good.”
“He sent this for you in case you should come by. His friend Tommy brought it over yesterday. Do you know big Tommy?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
She lifted an envelope off the mantel, addressed to “Sean Duffy of the RUC.” The envelope contained three fifty-pound notes and a note that, presumably, Tommy had printed out, which said, “Your name has come up in some strange circles, Duffy. I was asked if I knew you and I said no. If you ever come back to America, I’d be careful if I were you.”
I looked at the note in amazement.
“Where can I find this Tommy? I need to know about this,” I asked the nan, but the Belfast omertà had kicked in. Now she wasn’t sure if it was Tommy or Tony.
“Do you have a contact number for Michael?”
Nope, she didn’t have that either.
I gave her my number and asked her to ask him to give me a call anytime, day or night. As I was leaving, I shoved the fifties into her money box when she wasn’t looking, and made my goodbyes.
I drove to Carrick station, absolutely baffled by this little interaction, and wondered if it could possibly tie into my case.
America?
And what the hell was that Michael kid up to over there?
I thought of the bloody CIA bug. This was all linked somehow. This was spook country shit. And I’d been exiled from spook country. No contacts. No way back in.
I was mulling all this over when the phone began ringing in Lawson’s office.
I put down the whisky glass.
“Carrick CID, Duffy here.”
“Duffy, it’s me, Superintendent Clare.”
“Good morning, sir, what can I help you with?”
“Nothing. Everything’s very much in hand,” he said with the very particular arrogance of a Special Branch detective superintendent.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call, then, sir?”
“Two things, Duffy. First of all, I heard you attended Locke’s wake.”
“Yes, sir, I thought I could pick up the odd tidbit of info.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“I should have made myself clearer the other day. You should always make yourself clear with subordinates lest you be misunderstood. We are in the process of negotiating an interview with Mr. O’Roarke, and this has jeopardized the situation. Apparently, you annoyed the man while he was waking his friend.”
“I’m sorry about that, sir,” I said meekly.
“You could have got yourself hurt too. The Irish Republic is no place for a detective in the RUC to go gallivanting around.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, fortunately, the negotiations for the interview are back on track, and fortunately, you didn’t get yourself killed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then, Duffy. I’ll say my goodbyes.”
“Wait a minute, sir. You said there were two things we needed to talk about?”
“Oh, yes. There’s been a second murder that might possibly be related to our case. I don’t think it is, but you have to think laterally sometimes, don’t you? Do you know Eileen Cavanagh?”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“She’s in our files. Special Branch files. She’s suspected of being involved in half a dozen murders over the last decade. Suspected, mind you—never any forensic evidence of a crime.”
“What does ‘involved’ mean?”
“She was the button man. Button woman. She went to Libya in ’eighty-five. Turned out she was a genius with a sniper rifle.”
“I see. And now she’s dead?”
“Murdered early this morning. I’m at the scene now.”
“How do we know this is related to Brendan?”
“It’s exactly the same MO as Locke. She was living in South Belfast under an assumed name and an assumed identity. I’m looking at the transcripts of her telephone calls right now.”
“She made a lot of calls to a public phone box in Dundalk. Am I right, sir?” I asked.
“You are right. Look, Duffy, I’ve asked around about you. Wildly contradictory reports, if I’m honest, but a few people I trust tell me that generally you have good instincts. Do you want to come over and take a look? I know it’s not really your case anymore, but I thought you’d be?—”
“I’ll be right over. What’s the address?”
Fifty-five Holly Street, South Belfast.
Beemer.
The M5.
Lights on. Siren on. Yeah, I know, you’re not supposed to do that, but hey, I was a detective on a murder investigation.
55 Holly Street was a little red-bricked terraced house near the River Lagan. A nice street. University Street. Middle-class street. Number 55 was at the very end of the terrace. There were bloody peelers everywhere: beat cops, Special Branch detectives, forensic officers, even traffic.
So many people, it was actually a bit chaotic.
I found an FO I knew called Damian Shaw.
We shook hands.
“Damian, how goes it?”
“It goes okay. Surprised to see you. Heard you’d retired from detective work.”
“I have.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“This is very much a one-off,” I said, and explained the situation with Lawson, and the shooting of Alan Locke.
“Well, this one wasn’t shot,” Damian explained.
“What was the cause of death?”
“Are you squeamish?”
“A bit.”
“You might want to give this one a miss, then.”
“How was she killed?”
“There was a struggle. Looks like the killer broke into the house through the back window, intending to kill her in her sleep, but she woke up and defended herself. She went down fighting. They went at it in the bedroom and the kitchen before he finally beat her to death with an iron skillet.”
“None of the neighbors heard anything?”
“House next door is empty, and the house next to that is student accommodation and the students haven’t moved in yet.”
“Shit... Forensics?”
“Unfortunately not. She had a knife, though, so the bastard was lucky.”
“What’s the working hypothesis? Clare thinks it could be a hit?”
“Nah, I doubt it, nothing so exotic. Burglar thought he was coming into an empty house and he gets the surprise of his life by meeting Miss Ninja here. They go at it and he kills her.”
“Not a professional killing, then?”
“Far too nasty a scene for that.”
“It’s very unpleasant?”
“Oh, yes,” Shaw said, impressed.
I took a deep breath. “Better go inside, then,” I said.
Up the steps, past more FO men, portable lights and equipment. I saw Frank Payne, my other FO mate, but when I tried to say hello, Frank gave me the fingers-over-lips gesture.
“Superintendent Clare runs a tight ship,” he whispered. “No chitchat, all business.”
I found Clare in the living room giving orders to his subordinates. He introduced me to three of his colleagues: a DI Siobhan McGuinness, a DI Michael O’Leary, and a DCI Stan Preston. Both men were younger than I. Both in their twenties or early thirties, by the look of it. Career Special Branch. Going places. Treadmill bodies. No drinking. Sharp suits. Clever. They were the new breed. Analytics men. My type: slovenly seventies-style lazy intuitive coppers were on their way out. Siobhan McGuinness was even younger, twenty-two maybe. Highflier right out of university. Bloody hell.
I watched them go about their work: efficient, organized, professional.
“Nothing yet on your bug, Duffy,” Clare said.
“No?”
“My guess is that it’s unrelated.”
“I doubt that very?—”
“You’ve ticked off some of the local players, and they’re tapping your phones to see if they can blackmail you with your gay affair, or something, you think, yeah?”
“Wouldn’t they just shoot me, sir?”
“No. Better to blackmail you. Have a man on the inside.”
“The bug’s pretty sophisticated for local paramilitaries,” I said dubiously.
“You can get anything on the international arms market these days... Listen, when you’ve got a moment, I’d like you to have a wee look at the crime scene and give me your impressions.”
“I’ve got a moment now, sir.”
“Excellent. This way. Hope you haven’t had a greasy breakfast.”
“Just whisky.”
I followed him into the kitchen.
The body was still there. Eileen Cavanagh’s head had been smashed in so hard that her brains and bits of skull were all over the floor and walls. Her face was hanging off.
I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t do that in front of all these Special Branch goons and the FO men.
“Thoughts, Inspector Duffy?”
I bent down, seemingly to examine the body, but in reality to conceal the fact that my eyes were closed.
“We think she heard him coming in the back door and got out of bed and confronted him; the fight progressed to the kitchen, where she managed to grab a knife. Unfortunately, he got the skillet, and in the struggle he was able to beat her to death,” Clare said.
I opened my eyes again. There was a kitchen knife in her hand, sure enough. But the handle was gripped for stabbing downward, not slashing or threatening a burglar. The knife had been put there after she was dead. A good coroner might even find livor mortis blood pooling in her palms that proved that.
“I called you in, Duffy, because this is the second IRA assassin to get hit in three days, but I think you’ll agree this has more the marks of a burglary gone wrong, yes? Burglar high as a kite, it seems. No professional would leave a scene like this one, would he? I mean, there’s brains hanging off the ceiling.”
I looked up above my head, and sure enough, there was gore on the bulb and the ceiling. Jesus.
“Well?” Clare said.
I stood and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Superintendent, but I don’t think your hypothesis is the correct one,” I said cautiously.
“Oh?”
“If she heard someone breaking into her house, she would have reached for the gun that you might still find under her pillow or next to her bed, and she would have stayed in her room and shot the intruder as he was coming in through the bedroom door. She wouldn’t go to the kitchen to get a knife. The knife was placed in her hand postmortem.”
To calm my nerves, I stood up and looked out the window for a glimpse of the River Lagan beyond the garden. The old Lagan was brown and gray. This Lagan had stretches of blue in it. The elimination of Belfast’s entire manufacturing base was at least giving the river room to breathe.
“No, sir, this guy’s too good to be heard breaking into someone’s house. A house he has been staking out for a few days or even weeks. He broke in; he removed the gun from under her pillow; he woke her from her sleep with a gun in her face. He walked her to the kitchen, made her kneel on the floor, and smashed her head in with a skillet. Single blow. He’s very strong, and good at what he does. Then he hit the body a dozen more times to make it look like there was a struggle; then he put the knife in her hands and broke the back window.”
“Why?” Clare asked.
“Because he doesn’t know that we’re onto him.”
“Are we onto him?”
“Yes. The pattern is becoming obvious now. All his victims are trained IRA killers with ties to Brendan O’Roarke. He thinks he needs to establish false trails and red herrings in their deaths so Brendan won’t get spooked. The joyriders’ hijack gone wrong. The woman who confronts a burglar in her own home. But it’s too late for all that now. We know, and Brendan probably knows too. Someone is taking out Brendan’s operatives before they initiate their coup attempt. Our guy’s caution is redundant. He’s a pro, but he might as well just have killed her in her sleep.”
Clare shook his head skeptically, but I noticed young DI Preston nodding and whispering something to McGuinness, something that made her nod thoughtfully—so at least someone thought I wasn’t a crazy old man.
“Anyway, I’ll take a look through the rest of the house if that’s okay,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
I searched the house.
Nothing of interest except her record collection, which contained some rare twelve-inch Beatles singles that I very much would have liked to nick, and could possibly have nicked if this were my investigation.
But it wasn’t.
I went outside to the FO tea tent and had a cuppa with Frank.
“Gloomy in there, isn’t it?” Frank said, gesturing behind him. “Special Branch don’t so much as allow you to whistle. I’d rather be working in your manor.”
“I’m touched, Frank.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not saying you’re a good peeler. I just prefer the working conditions.”
“Well, you won’t be seeing me for a long time, Francis.”
“Why’s that?” he asked with some concern.
“Young Lochinvar is back tonight, I think, and he’ll be taking over Carrick CID again tomorrow, and I’ll be going back to Scotland. Clare only called me in today as a courtesy anyway.”
“Aye, I heard you trying to impress him in there.”
“I wasn’t trying to impress him. I thought his interpretation of the crime scene was wrong.”
“Save it for the judge, mate. You want the rest of this smoke?” he asked, passing me the ciggie.
“Nah, you’re okay.”
“That’s right. I forgot you’ve become a health nut. Oh, well, back at it. Best to Lawson, and I’ll see you when I see you, okay?”
“Okay, Francis.”
We shook hands and I lingered for a while, but no one seemed to want or need my services.
I checked underneath the Beemer for bombs and drove on home.