Crossfire (15 page)

Wednesday, 7 March
0326 hrs

I heard someone come out of a back gate and the
sound of a garbage bag landing in a wheelie-bin.
A dog got a bollocking for something or other.

I was standing outside the toilet window. I'd
been playing Peeping Tom since about midnight.
I'd had to wait more than two hours for Siobhan
to go to bed, and then another hour or so to give
her time to nod off. It was really unusual for
someone to be up as late as two during the week.
My brain worked overtime. Could she have been
waiting for a call from Dom on that second
mobile of hers? I'd find out soon enough.

I had one last feel about in my grey trousers
and shitty brown fleece pockets to make sure I
hadn't overlooked any coins or anything that
was going to rattle or fall out. ID-wise I was
sterile – no wallet, no credit cards. It wasn't about
what would happen if the police caught me. With
luck, that was when the Yes Man would come
into his own. It was to do with leaving nothing
behind. Why take stuff on target you don't need?
All I had was forty euros shoved down my socks
in case there was a flap and I had to run for a taxi.

I checked that the fishing-line I'd looped round
my wrist hadn't unravelled.

I could feel my mobile in the inside pocket of
my fleece and checked again that it was turned
off before rezipping. You can never tell when the
bad fairy might pay you a visit and sprinkle
the fuck-you-up dust.

Finally, I checked that all the other bits and
pieces for the close target recce were good
and secure in their pockets. Everything I was taking
in was tied to my clothes with fishing-line.

As a car rumbled along the street I pulled the
curled-up cola-bottle disc from the front of my
fleece. I shoved it up through the narrow gap
between the two sash window frames and
watched it curl round the other side.

'Lottie, you bollix!' Wheelie-bin man was
getting pissed off with his little furry friend.
'Come here!'

I wiggled the plastic circle until it rested
against the brass latch, then turned and pulled it
along the frame. The latch started to swivel
open under the pressure of the coiled plastic.

The device was also magic for opening Yale
locks on doors. Credit cards don't work like they
do in Hollywood because there are two right-angles
to negotiate before getting to the
deadlock. As long as you keep on turning and
pushing, the curly stuff will get round them
and push the bolt open. But it wasn't so easy,
these days, to find nice thick plastic bottles. This
going-green business was fucking up the method-of-entry
trade for sure, but luckily the cheap
stores' own brands were still up to spec.

Within seconds the window was unlocked. I
pulled the plastic back through and put it down
at my feet.

The bottom of the frame was stuck, but it
didn't take much effort to budge it. I pushed up,
just a couple of centimetres at a time. When it
was open as far as it would go, I heaved myself
up on my stomach. Once inside, I made sure I
kept on my knees instead of my feet.

I was sitting on the varnished wooden floorboards.
I cocked my head and listened, tuning in
to my new environment. I'd just been making a
lot of movement and wanted to be sure nobody
had heard it and was reacting. I'd also opened a
window. Even when people are asleep, their
eardrums can be sensitive to minute changes in
air pressure. It was probably caveman survival
stuff – you needed a little advance warning if a
brontosaurus was coming into the cave to eat
you.

I waited a little longer. There was no rush. The
hard part was done. This toilet area was
the buffer zone between the outside and the in.

There was still no movement, no late-night
snackers raiding the fridge in the kitchen above
me. No sound from a radio or TV.

I pulled the two plastic shower caps from my
jeans and put them over my boots, tucking them
in at the sides for extra grip. I didn't want to
mark the tiles or drag in any of the wet, grimy
shit from the street. Siobhan was probably not
out there with the Hoover every day, but people
notice these things. And while she didn't look
like the kind of girl who pulled on the Marigolds,
staff have eyes too.

The next problem was going to be the motion
detectors. Was the house zoned? Did she put the
alarm on when she went to bed? Chances were
she didn't, but I had no way of telling. All I knew
was that when she had finally thrown her hand
in, there wasn't a long delay between her coming
out of the kitchen and the hallway light turning
off. She'd not had time to stop and tap in a code,
just turned off the light and walked straight up
the stairs. I didn't think she'd gone to the pad I'd
spotted in the hallway. But for all I knew there
might be another upstairs.

I took the black balaclava from the front of the
fleece and pulled it over my head. I had cut out
two holes for my ears. In the dark they're more
important than eyes so there was no sense in
keeping them covered.

Easing down the handle a fraction at a time, I
opened the door a couple of inches. The hinges
didn't squeak. I opened it some more and slipped
out of the buffer zone.

The first thing I looked at was the blue light on
the motion detector. It flickered as it sensed me. I
held my breath, waiting for the initial warning
tone that normally kicks in after about twenty
seconds.

Nothing happened.

I rocked backwards and forwards. The motion
detector kicked off again and the blue light
flickered – but again, no response.

I went back into the toilet, pulled the window
closed and eased the latch back into place.
Everything had to look normal while I was inside
the building. It wasn't very likely she was going
to come all the way downstairs to use the
plumbing, but if she did, that was the job
fucked.

Back in the hallway, I stopped, looked and
listened. The wool of the balaclava was warm
and wet around my mouth. I let my jaw drop
open so that all the internal noises like breathing
and swallowing didn't intrude. The house was
almost completely silent: no ticking clocks, not
even the common night creaks as bits of the
building settled after the day.

First stop was the boy's bedroom. I eased
myself in and pulled the keyring torch from my
pocket. The fishing-line attaching it to my jeans
belt loop had to unravel before I was able to get
the beam shining where I wanted it.

The laptop and modem were still in place. I'd
deal with them later if I could. The mobile was
the priority. The laptop would take some
fiddling. If I was compromised I'd deck whoever
it was, then leg it with the laptop and maybe her
handbag or something so it looked like a
burglary.

I closed the door and took a few careful paces
to the spiral staircase. I put my foot on the first
step, right against the wall. It took my weight
without protest.

I headed up, taking each step gingerly.

Slowly, slowly, my head came level with the
kitchen floor. No lights were on. A little ambient
glow from the end of the street washed through
the rear window, and a little more from the
adjoining door from the front room. The only
other source was the standby lights on the
microwave, cooker and all the other gadgets.

The smell of cigarettes and pizza got stronger
as I moved up the stairs.

The empty delivery box sat with its lid open on
the wooden island, alongside an empty bottle
and a glass with only a drop left in it. The mail
had been opened and lay next to the now overflowing
ashtray.

Slowly and deliberately I made my way
through the double doors and into the front
room. The neck of yet another bottle stuck out of
the bin.

The drawer had been pushed right in. I made a
mental note. That was exactly how I had to leave
it. She would know every detail of this house and
its contents, whether she realized it or not.
Maybe the drawer was really hard to close, and
had to be given a bit of extra force that took it less
than flush with the front of the desk. If I didn't do
exactly the same, her alarm bells might ring.

I eased my left hand under the drawer, lifted
the handle with my right and pulled, slowly but
firmly.

The drawer opened six inches, enough to
expose the grey plastic mobile sitting in the
bottom-right corner. I studied its exact position in
relation to the biros and bits of paper, then lifted
it out.

I took off the back. No way was I going to
switch it on and let it blurt some happy tune. A
quick sniff of the SIM card was all I needed.

The stairs creaked.

And then the hall lights came on.

I pushed the drawer shut and dropped behind
the blue velvet two-seater. The mobile phone was
still in my hand.

The slap of flip-flops approached along the
tiled hall floor. They came at normal walking
pace, not agitated, not tentative, and padded into
the kitchen.

The spotlights went on.

The movement in the kitchen would cover
my noise. I half turned, reached up, opened
the drawer and pushed the phone as far
back as I could. Siobhan or whoever it was
might come for it. Perhaps I'd find out where
Dom was just by listening. If not, I'd
wait, as planned, until I could copy the SIM
card.

The feet slapped their way down the kitchen
stairs. There was nothing to tell me whether they
were Dom's, Siobhan's, Finbar's, or someone
else's altogether.

I was waiting to hear the toilet door close but it
didn't. Soon the feet were heading back up the
stairs.

There were a few noises I couldn't make out,
and then the unmistakable pop of a cork.
Seconds later came the glug of pouring, then the
click of a cigarette lighter. I could smell smoke.

Fingers began clicking at a keyboard. I heard a
couple of sighs and sniffs.

I was pretty sure it was her now. She carried on
typing.

I inched my way to the corner of the settee. It
was in shadow, but I wanted to make sure I
wasn't in her line of sight.

I moved my head until I could just see her with
one eye, keeping my mouth open to control my
breathing.

She was sitting on a stool at the island, sideways
on to the open door. She was wearing
mule-type slippers and a towelling dressing-gown.
Her hair fell forward as she looked down
at the screen. She wasn't reading. She was
waiting.

She reached for the wine bottle, poured herself
a second glass, and wiped her nose on her
dressing-gown. Halfway through the second
mouthful, she slammed the glass on to the worktop.
She needed both hands to work the keys.

Whatever she was reading wasn't good news.
Her face contorted and a gasp turned into a sob.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She refilled the glass
with trembling hands and tried to compose herself,
drink and smoke at the same time.

She sniffed some more as she placed her
cigarette on a corner of the ashtray, the only
vacant spot left for it. Then she got up, walked
away from me and disappeared down the
stairs.

I was out from behind the sofa and heading for
the kitchen.

I heard the toilet door close.

Cigarette smoke worked its way through the
wool and into my nostrils as I looked at
the screen. The Sony laptop was a few years old,
but had USB ports. The white Vodafone modem
dangling from one was about half the size of a
pack of playing cards. It would contain a SIM
card, but there was no time to extract it.

I read the screen. She was replying to a
Hotmail. The sender had had plenty to say but I
didn't have time to read it. The important stuff
was in the header. The message was timed at 8.37
a.m. GMT today. The laptop told me it was now
04:10, so the email had come from the east.

The toilet flushed.

I pulled the notebook and pencil from my
pocket and scribbled the IMEI and SN numbers
from the back. They'd mean something to
somebody who knew about that shit. I wrote
down both Hotmail addresses.

I moved quickly and was back behind the
settee before she settled down at the island again.
A few seconds later, she was pounding the keys.

She kept it up for another twenty minutes
before I heard another glug followed by a click.
The stool grated on the floor and her mules
clacked back down the stairs accompanied by a
few more sniffs and sobs. Seconds later they
came back up, and towards the front room. She
carried on past and up the stairs. I looked out.
Her glass had gone but not the cigarettes.

I moved down the hall to the kitchen.

She'd left the mail. Only a couple of letters
were open. One had a green motif and was
headed Dublin Drug Outreach. It was addressed
to Finbar in St Stephen's Green. Maybe he did
live here and his mail was forwarded. Maybe she
was picking it up for him. I read the letter
quickly. He hadn't attended any sessions for the
last four weeks and had made no contact with his
mentor. They were worried about him.

The letter underneath was from an estate agent.
He was jumping for joy that she'd accepted an
offer for €6.5 million for 88 Herbert Park.

There was a noise upstairs. Probably her going
to the bathroom again, but maybe not. I wasn't
going to risk going back for the mobile in the
drawer. Fuck it, it was time to go.

Back in the toilet, I unwound the fishing-line
from my left wrist. I'd already prepared the loose
end into a three- or four-strand loop. Four-pounds
breaking strain was a little weak. I put
the loop over the end of the latch, fed the free end
through the gap between the frames and opened
the bottom window. Then I grabbed the free end
of the line and pulled it through.

I lowered myself into the garden. A couple of
dogs a few houses away were too interested in
growling at each other to worry about me.

Gripping the line to keep it taut, I pulled the
window closed. It took just one smooth pull for
the latch to flick across, and the loop jumped free.
The internal frame locks weren't a worry;
nobody ever checks them.

I made my way to the back wall, pulled myself
up and rolled over the top, the way I'd got in.
There was a gate, but I couldn't use it. I wouldn't
be able to bolt it again once I was streetside.

I turned left and headed up the service road. I
got out my mobile and dialled as I walked.

It rang just once.

'I couldn't get the mobile but I think they're in
contact via Hotmail. She's using a modem.' I read
him the IMEI and SN numbers. 'But listen,
there's more. There's a letter from an estate
agency – Fitzgerald Drum Maguire & Walshe. It
was addressed to just Mrs, not Mr and Mrs. She's
selling the house.'

This time I closed down before he did. He
would have to wait for me now.

The time difference on the email was four and
a half hours. She had taken a couple of minutes
to read the thing before going into water-fountain
mode. There was only one time zone
that was four and half hours ahead of GMT, and
I was prepared to bet good money on finding a
man called Baz there.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself, until I
walked out on to the main road and looked down
to see my boots still covered with the two
flowery shower caps.