Living Death (41 page)

‘We’ve been going out together for yonks there.’

‘And your father and sisters don’t mind?’

‘Not at all, like, because it’s a way of keeping our two families in touch with each other, even if most of them hate each other’s guts, and wouldn’t piss on each other if they was on fire. Like if the Callahans have some deal in mind and the O’Flynns happen to have the same deal in mind, we both get to know about it and so we don’t tread on each other’s toes, like, do you know what I mean?’

‘You mean if you’re both thinking of robbing the same charity shop, you don’t both turn up there at the same time?’

‘I’m admitting to nothing like that. My family never robbed a charity shop and never would. Holy Mary, what do you take us for?’

‘I’m just giving you a hypothetical example, Maureen. But go on.’

Maureen looked dubious for a moment, but then she said, ‘Okay... O’Reilly offers me ten thousand euros to tell you that story. I say twenty, and he says fifteen, but I stick to twenty and in the end he says yes, he can just about scrape that up, because it’s worth it. So the rest you know.’

‘So you never spoke to any undercover detective from the SDU?’

Maureen shook her blonde bob, but Katie said, ‘Would you just say “no” out loud, please, Maureen, because we’re recording this.’

‘No. I never met nobody like that, and do you think I’d tell them goms anything if I did? All I did was tell you what O’Reilly told me to tell you.’

‘So there is no arms shipment?’

‘We was out of that business a long time ago, after the Good Friday Agreement. Not that I’m admitting that we was ever in it.’

‘But this arms shipment that you told me was delivered this morning to Sarsfield Court Industrial Estate – that doesn’t exist?’

‘No, it does not.’

‘So nobody’s coming from Armagh this afternoon to make you an offer for Skorpion machine pistols?’

‘No, nobody at all.’

‘So what’s the significance of half-past three? Surely if Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly was trying to get me to set up an abortive raid on an empty warehouse, any time would have done.’

‘I have to admit that was my idea,’ said Maureen. She stopped looking so petulant and actually managed a self-satisfied little smirk. ‘It was my idea but O’Reilly went for it big time. We’ve only just taken over the lease of the warehouse, like, and at the moment it’s empty. But my sister Saoirse has the twin boys Tom and Patrick and it was their birthdays this week, so we decided that the warehouse would be a grand location for a party, seeing as how there’s thirty or forty kids to entertain. Inside there’s tables set up and the place is all decorated with balloons and paper chains, and there’s going to be clowns and magicians and O’Brady’s performing dogs.’

Katie sat back. ‘I have to hand it to you, Maureen. That was a stroke of genius. I can see the headlines now. “Armed Gardaí Raid Kiddie’s Birthday Party”. I would have been lucky not to have been sacked on the spot and lose my pension.’

‘O’Reilly did give me the impression that he wasn’t too fond of you, like, I have to tell you.’

‘That’s the understatement of the century.’

Detective Ó Doibhilin raised one eyebrow as if to say ‘That just about wraps that up, then, doesn’t it? Don’t ask me what in the name of God how you’re going to handle this now.’

‘That’s all I can tell you,’ said Maureen. ‘Are you going to let me go now?’

‘Yes, Maureen,’ Katie told her, ‘you can go. I have one stipulation, though: you’re not to mention any of this to anybody. Especially the media. Like, ever, for the rest of your life.’

‘My father and my sisters know all about it. I had to warn them that the guards were going to come bursting in when they were all singing “Happy Birthday to You”.

‘Well, tell them to keep it to themselves, too, or I’ll pull you straight back in again for wasting police time and any other charge I can think of.’

Maureen nodded towards the briefcase. ‘What about my twenty thousand?’

‘I hope you’re not serious. That money is evidence. And you didn’t exactly earn it, did you, because you got found out.’

‘That wasn’t my fault. O’Reilly knew that Branán was on his holliers but he said I should tell you that he was dead.’

‘Me and the moth went to Gran Canaria for a week once,’ put in Sergeant Daley. mournfully, taking off his glasses. ‘There isn’t too much difference between that and being dead.’

*

After Maureen Callahan had left, Detective Ó Doibhilin took the briefcase back to the Technical Bureau to have the money and the interior lining tested for any signs of fingerprints or DNA that might prove that Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly had handled it.

Katie meanwhile went back up to her office to check if Lorcan Fitzgerald had rung Conor back. As she was walking past Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly’s office, she saw that his door was open, and she could hear somebody moving around inside. She wondered if Jimmy O’Reilly had seen Maureen Callahan being arrested by Detective Ó Doibhilin, and had come back to the station to find out if she had told Katie about him paying her off. She knocked, and opened the door wider.

Nobody answered, so she went inside. Standing behind Jimmy O’Reilly’s desk she found his former civilian assistant, James Elvin. He had the looks of a young Leonardo DiCaprio, with brushed-up blond hair, and before she had discovered that he was Jimmy O’Reilly’s lover, Katie had quite fancied him. He had a black waterproof jacket draped over his arm and he was holding a pair of yellow leather boots. With his free hand he was leafing through Jimmy O’Reilly’s desk diary.

As soon as Katie came into the office, he quickly closed the diary and stepped away from the desk – grinning guiltily, because he knew that he had been caught in the act.

‘DS Maguire!’ he said. ‘How’s it going on?’

‘I thought you didn’t work here any more,’ said Katie.

‘No, I don’t. But Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly said I could come by the station and pick up this jacket and these boots I left behind.’

‘What, and look through his diary, too?’

‘I was curious to know how long he was going to be away, that’s all.’

‘Monday he’ll be back. Why?’

‘I need to talk to him face-to-face.’

‘I see. I won’t ask you what about.’

‘I’m leaving Cork, that’s all. As a matter of fact I’m leaving the country altogether. I’ve found myself a job with a law firm in Amsterdam that’s desperate for an English-speaking secretary.’

‘I wish you luck, then.’

James Elvin hesitated for a moment, and then he said, ‘I don’t want to hurt him, like. But I thought it best to make a clean break, you know. Rather than pretend that things could go on like they were before.’

‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘You know full well that he was borrowing money from Bobby Quilty so that I could settle the debts that I’d run up gambling. The things he said about you, I wouldn’t repeat them to a priest in confession.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s said plenty to my face. I think “witch” was about the least worst name that he called me.’

‘I can’t change my ways,’ said James Elvin. ‘I’ve tried, believe me. I’ve even been to the Gamblers Anonymous. But I suppose you could say that I’m hopelessly addicted. The problem is – now that Bobby Quilty’s gone to meet his Maker – Jimmy has nobody else that he can borrow the money off. Sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect – Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly.’

Katie could see that he had tears in his eyes. He wiped them with his sleeve, and then he said, ‘I asked him for ten thousand only a few days ago. I
begged
him, like. I was almost on my knees. There’s fellers from the Diamond Club who say they’re going to break my legs if I don’t pay at least half of what I owe them. But he said no, he couldn’t manage it, he needed the money for something more important. We had a real fierce argument about it. I said to him, what’s more important to you than me? But he wouldn’t say. So afterwards I thought, I’m glad to be going. The feller that runs the law firm in Amsterdam, he says he can help me financially, if you follow me. And all the debts I’ve run up in Cork, I can leave them behind and forget about them, because they’ll never find out where I’ve disappeared to.’

‘Holy Mother of God,’ said Katie. ‘You’re some chiselling little bastard, aren’t you?’

James Elvin sniffed, and shrugged. ‘I know that, DS Maguire. You don’t have to tell me. But that’s me, that’s the way I am, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The only thing is, I’m shitting myself about telling Jimmy because I know he’ll do ninety, and then he’ll probably cry, and I don’t want to leave him like that.’

Katie said, very quietly, ‘Why don’t you write him a note, James, telling him that you have started a new life? Tell him how much you appreciate everything that he’s done for you, and that you’re going to miss him, but you’re sure that he’ll soon be able to find somebody else to take your place. Write him a note like that, and I’ll give it to him, and then you won’t have to face him raging at you or bursting into tears.’

‘You’d do that for me? Even though I’ve been such a bastard?’

‘James, there’s such a thing in this world as forgiveness. Write the note and bring it along to my office. Then off you go to Amsterdam and forget about Cork and your gambling debts and Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly.’

‘Thank you,’ said James Elvin, although he was so choked up that he could hardly get the words out.

Katie walked along to her office feeling treacherous, in a way, but also triumphant. She couldn’t wait to see Jimmy O’Reilly’s face when she presented him with his own briefcase, with his twenty thousand euros still in it, and a note from James Elvin saying that he was leaving him.

*

Conor was still waiting for a return call from Lorcan Fitzgerald, and Detective Scanlan was looking bored.

Katie said, ‘Okay, Let’s leave it for now. Conor – so long as you keep that phone with you. Maybe Fitzgerald’s busy napping dogs right now, or maybe he’s just not interested in your Neapolitan mastiff. If that’s the case, we’ll have to track him down some other way. Michael – you go home now and get your head down. Pádraigin, go and get yourself something to eat.’

‘What about you?’ asked Conor, when Detectives Ó Doibhilin and Scanlan had gone.

‘I thought you and me could go to Ramen for some Asian street food. It’s only a couple of minutes down the road.’

‘That sounds like a plan. Breakfast seems like a long time ago now.’

They walked together down Anglesea Street to Ramen, with its red-painted frontage and a notice-board outside saying
Buy One For The Price Of Two And Get One Free
. It was crowded inside, and noisy, and filled with the smells of wok-fried vegetables and garlic. They managed to find a place to sit on one of the long wooden benches, and order themselves some beef khao pad and prawn firecracker and teriyaki. Conor ordered a Tiger beer but Katie stuck to sparkling water.

Conor laid the mobile phone on the table beside him in case Lorcan Fitzgerald rang.

‘I missed you last night, Katie,’ he told her.

‘I missed you too.’

‘So when are you and I going to be able to get together again?’

She reached across and gently touched his cheek. She loved his face. It was so strong, and clearly formed, and in his eyes she could see such sparkle and sincerity. Her husband Paul had been handsome when she first met him, but too many years of Satzenbrau and take-away curries had made him rounder, with a double chin, and his eyes had always been shifty, like his character. John had looked almost godlike when she first met him, with his black curly hair and his muscular body, but now of course he was physically ruined.

Fate had brought her Conor at the wrong time in her life – while she still had John to look after – but she had such a strong feeling that he could be the right man for her. His lovemaking had been so strong but so considerate, and more than anything else he made her laugh, and feel happy.

‘I can come back to the guest house with you this evening,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay all night, though, as much as I’d like to.’

‘I thought you said you had someone to take care of your dog. What’s his name – Barney?’

‘I do. But I have other things to attend to.’

‘Like?’

‘Like checking my mail and watering my plants and making sure the house is tidy. Also, my father lives in Monkstown on the opposite side of the river and I have to go and see if he needs anything.’

‘Okay, fair play. I suppose that sometimes post and plants and parents have to take priority over passion.’

She gave him a light, playful slap. He caught hold of her wrist, and held it firmly, and looked steadily into her eyes. He didn’t have to say anything. She could sense that he was feeling a stirring sensation between his legs just by holding her, because she was feeling the same.
My God,
she thought,
this is something special. This is something very, very special.

‘Come with me this afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’m going up to Sarsfield Court, for a birthday party.’

‘A birthday party? Aren’t you on duty?’

‘You’ll see,’ she said, as their food arrived in cardboard take-away boxes. She picked up her chopsticks and gave him a particular look that John always used to call her Irish Sea look. Because her eyes were so green, he said that it made him feel that he was looking out to sea – a calm sea, but a sea with unexplored depths, where sunken treasure lay, but riptides, too.

They ate, and talked, and laughed, but still the phone didn’t ring.

Only about ten minutes after they had returned from lunch, Dr Kelley arrived at the station. She came up to Katie’s office in a bundled-up camelhair coat and a floppy tweed hat, carrying a white cardboard box.

‘I had three tries at this before I managed to get it right,’ she said. ‘But I’m pure pleased with what I’ve managed to produce.’

She set the box down on the low glass-topped table by the couches, and opened the lid. Inside, carefully wrapped up in tissue paper, were five knife-blades, all made of dark grey plastic. Two of the blades were flat, like conventional knife-blades, but the other three were thick and multi-faceted, more like lemon-squeezers than knives.