Red Light (29 page)

‘The mobile phone sounds promising,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to repeat this all over again to Bryan. He’s the boss man now.’

Katie couldn’t keep her eyes off the Garda badge on the end of the bottle-opener.

‘There’s something else I need to discuss with you, Dermot, and I’m not too sure how to broach it with Bryan.’

‘Like you say, Katie, he’s a decent officer, even if we are allergic to him. Come on, you’ve dealt with plenty of sexist pigs before now. All you have to do is to feed them a bucketful of swill now and again. Your record speaks for itself.’

‘I just don’t know how Bryan’s going to react, that’s all. I don’t want him coming down like a ton of bricks and upsetting half the station and me getting the blame for being Sneaky MacSneak.’

Chief Superintdent O’Driscoll stopped packing away his notebooks and took off his glasses.

‘What’s this all about, Katie?’

Katie told him everything that Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán had found out from the Thai tattooist Nok – that two Garda officers had been seen socializing in the Golden Fingers massage parlour with ‘Mister Dessie’ O’Leary and Mawakiya, or Kola, or whatever his real name was.

‘They never reported Mawakiya for any of the rackets he was running, like drug-dealing and fencing stolen goods, and they never reported him for pimping underage girls. What makes their misconduct all the more serious is that these girls had been passed on to Mawakiya by Michael Gerrety. Gerrety had refused to handle them himself because they were too young and might have jeopardized his Green Light campaign.’

‘And they didn’t speak up, these two, even when Mawakiya was found murdered?’

Katie shook head. ‘Neither of them said a word. If they had spoken up and told us who he was, we could have been spared hours of work. We might even have been able to arrest this Angel of Revenge woman before she murdered Mânios Dumitrescu.’

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘Only their first names, Ronan and Billy.’

‘Descriptions?’

‘Apparently Nok said that all Irishmen looked the same to him. But he had seen them both in uniform in the city centre, on patrol together.’

Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll slowly sat down. ‘I’m pretty sure I know who they are,’ he said. ‘Ronan Lynch and Billy Daly. Both of them have been in trouble over the years for various alleged transgressions. A couple of times for being overenthusiastic with the baton at public demonstrations. Another time they suggested to a motorist they might let him drive home drunk if he paid them an on-the-spot fine of two hundred euros. Then there’s been some cases of inappropriate sexual advances to the wives of men in jail, or to young women facing charges of theft or prostitution.’

He leaned back and looked up at Katie with an expression like a regretful old dog.

‘They’re not what you’d describe as rotten to the core, Katie. Not at all. They’ve both done some excellent work, especially when it comes to community policing and dealing with young offenders. Let’s just say that they’ve tended to take too much advantage of the privileges that go with being a guard. They seem to consider it’s the perks of the job, like. If they accept some free hospitality here and there, or pocket a little money for turning a blind eye when a councillor’s been speeding, they can’t understand why anybody should be disapproving. Keeps the wheels greased, that’s their attitude.’

‘But they knew about Mawakiya, and what he was up to, pimping underage girls, and they did nothing.’

‘Well, we can both guess why that was. If they’ve been hanging around with “Mister Dessie” O’Leary, then their ultimate paymaster must be Michael Gerrety.’

Katie said, ‘I’m going to be talking to Kyna when she comes back, to see if she knows any more about Ronan and Billy, and then I think I’ll have to talk to the two of them myself. Any evidence at all that Gerrety was aware that he was passing on underage girls for the purposes of prostitution will be absolutely invaluable. Reckless endangerment, at the very least.’

‘It’s a sad day, this, Katie,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll, and she knew that he wasn’t talking only about Ronan Lynch and Billy Daly.

‘What I was really asking you is, how should I bring this up with Bryan?’

Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll stood up again and resumed his packing. He said nothing for a while, but Katie waited patiently for him to answer.

At last he said, ‘Talk to Lynch and Daly before you say anything to Bryan. Tell them what you know and
insist
that they cooperate with you in nailing Michael Gerrety. If they don’t, you’ll make absolutely sure that the fertilizer hits the fan and they could end up losing a whole lot more than their jobs. Tell them you’d like to see how two bombos with Garda tattoos get treated by the residents of Rathmore Road.’

‘And if they refuse?’

‘
That’s
when you go to Bryan. But not before.’

‘Dermot, I know you don’t like him. Neither of us do. But don’t you
trust
him?’

‘I told you, Katie. He’s a decent officer and he’s done a lot for Limerick. He’s well-connected, too, and you’d be a fool to yourself if you fell out with him.’

‘But?’

‘Talk to Lynch and Daly first, and give them some time to consider. I don’t think we’ll ever get Michael Gerrety behind bars, but I still want to make sure that he’s convicted.’

At that moment, Katie’s iPhone played
And it’s no, nay, never –
no, nay never no more
—

‘I trust that phone of yours isn’t gloating,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll.

She had hoped it was John calling her back, but it was Bill from the Technical Bureau.

‘We’ve unlocked the phone we found in the workshop,’ he told her. ‘Are you going to give me an early Christmas bonus?’

‘It’s still July, Bill.’

‘Oh, I know that, but you wait till you see what we’ve got there. The phone is registered to Owoye Danjuma, Top Flat, 33 Oliver Plunkett Street. Don’t worry, we’ve checked, he doesn’t actually live there. In fact, nobody does at the moment.

‘You only have to look through a few of Owoye’s messages to realize that he’s usually known as Bula.’

‘So that’s who he is. Bula-Bulan Yaro. The Fat Man, in English.’

‘You know him?’

‘Oh yes, we know him all right. He mainly works for “Mister Dessie” O’Leary as a gofer and general odd-job man.’

‘Well, that makes sense. There’s about five million messages on this phone from “D”, telling your man to do this and do that and go to the airport and pick up somebody’s dry-cleaning and fix a door and God knows what else. I’ll bring it on up to you anyway, and you can go through it for yourself. There is so much incriminating evidence in this thing, and so many names, you’ll be arresting half of Cork.’

Katie said to Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll: ‘The mobile phone they found in the workshop, it belonged to Bula, that big fat Nigerian gom who runs around for Dessie O’Leary.’

‘I know, the one we can never get rid of. He sticks around like a bad smell, that man.’

‘Well, he does now, I can tell you. That body in the workshop, that’s almost certainly him. But you know what that suggests, don’t you?’

‘I don’t entirely, apart from the fact that all three of them were scumbags.’

‘It suggests a pattern. All three of them were scumbags, yes, but all three of them were directly connected to Michael Gerrety. It’s too early to say for certain, but that young girl Lolade said that the perpetrator called herself the Angel of Revenge. I have a strong feeling that she may be carrying out a vendetta here, picking off Michael Gerrety’s people one by one.’

‘She could be a prostitute herself,’ Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll suggested. ‘Maybe she feels that she was mistreated, or cheated.’

‘She’s probably Nigerian, because she actually called herself
Rama Mala’ika
, which is Hausa for “Angel of Revenge” – or at least that’s what Faith told me. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s a prostitute. I’ve been watching those CCTV sequences of her, over and over, and there’s something about the way she carries herself. She’s very attractive, and she’s very confident in the way she walks. She’s wearing a juju necklace, which may indicate that she’s a practiser of juju rather than a follower. In other words, she’s somebody who’s
controlling
, rather than controlled.’

‘That’s interpretating a hell of a lot from a straight back and a seashell necklace. You ought to be a detective.’

‘It’s her entire body language, Dermot. She’s determined, she’s alert, she knows what she intends to do and she knows how to do it. She managed to get Bula into that furniture workshop somehow and cut off his hands with a circular saw. That wasn’t done by any woman who’s had her spirit broken.’

‘It gives me the tingles in me wrists even to think about it,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll.

‘There’s one thing more: she uses a very unusual weapon. The way Lolade described it to me, it was very small, and she had to reload it after only one shot. There are several handguns that can fire shotgun shells, like the Taurus Judge or the Smith & Wesson Governor, but both of those can fire more than one shot without reloading, and you could hardly describe either of them as small. So I’d be interested to know what kind of gun our perpetrator was using, and where she got it from.

‘Her ammunition was very up to date, as you saw from Dr O’Brien’s first report. So I may be wrong, and I may be totally misjudging this young woman, but I don’t think she’s a hooker, or ever was a hooker. All the same, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s going after Michael Gerrety and his not-so-merry men, starting with the not-so-merry men and working her way upwards. What odds will you give me that “Mister Dessie” O’Leary is next on the hit list?’

‘That gun could be a very good lead. Have you canvassed all of the gun traders?’

‘Every single one from here to Dungarvon. No result at all. I’m meeting with Eugene Ó Béara tomorrow, but I doubt if I’ll get anything out of him.’

‘Oh well,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll. ‘It doesn’t do any harm to keep in touch with the boys of the old brigade.’ He paused, reflectively, and then he said, ‘What are you going to do about Dessie O’Leary? Are you going to warn him that he might well be a target for this Angel of Revenge? And what about Michael Gerrety? Are you going to warn him, too?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie – and she really didn’t. ‘I honestly think she’d be doing us a favour if she offed those two, don’t you?’

‘We’re guardians of the peace, Katie, not judges. Remember your oath.’

‘I do. I can still recite it word for word. But my oath doesn’t include anything about my going out of my way to save callous and sadistic bastards from the consequences of their own criminality. Come on, Dermot, the oath has always been open to interpretation. We swear to God that we’re not members of any secret society, don’t we? – but half the senior officers at Phoenix Park belong to the stone sculptors down at the end of Molesworth Street.’

Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll shrugged his shoulders. ‘I leave it up to your discretion, Katie. But be very careful how you handle this. Be doggy wide. It’s beginning to look like two trains approaching from opposite directions, so don’t get caught in the middle.’

She watched him pack the very last of his belongings, the silver clock that his parents had given him when he first graduated from Templemore.

‘I’m going to miss you, Dermot O’Driscoll,’ she told him. ‘Without you, I’d still be trying to find out who hobbled the collection money from the Holy Family, or who’s been pinching the knickers off Mrs O’Gallagher’s washing line.’

He nodded. ‘I’m going to miss you, too, Katie Maguire. I fought to have you promoted because I always believed that women have a much better nose for bullshit. Ha! I don’t know how much you’ve learned from me, but I can tell you for nothing that I’ve learned a whole lot from you – mostly about the opposite sex. My wife says I’ve been a much better husband since you were promoted. She says I actually listen to her when she’s talking. I have to admit that listening to her hasn’t made her any more interesting – in fact, it’s reminded me why I stopped listening to her in the first place. But there, you can’t have everything.’

‘You’ll be back,’ said Katie.

Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll looked around his office. There was nothing on the walls now except the rectangular marks where his photographs had hung.

He didn’t answer, but his mouth was puckered tight and his eyes were glistening, and they both knew that he would never be sitting in this office, no, nay, never no more.

It was nearly 11.00 p.m. before Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán came back to the station, and she looked exhausted. She slumped down in Katie’s office and said, ‘Jesus, I’m knackered.’

‘Any luck with witnesses?’

‘No. I must have talked to more than forty people, but nothing. I interviewed all of the staff at the Mutton Lane Inn and most of the stallholders in the English Market, and quite a few shoppers besides. Not one of them could remember seeing an obese African man accompanied by a thin African woman.

‘One of the butchers said that he’d seen a really fat African woman with three thin kids, if that was any good to me. In fact, he said the kids were so thin he offered the woman some buckshee sausages to fatten them up a little, like her. After that, she screamed at him for almost five minutes, giving him a hard time for insulting her.’

‘Let me get us some coffees,’ said Katie. ‘I think I’m badly in need a caffeine fix.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán.

‘No, no. You’ve been on your feet all day. I want to see how Horgan’s getting on, anyway.’

On her way back from the canteen with a tray of five coffees, Katie pushed her way into the squad room. Bill from the Technical Bureau had brought up Bula’s iPhone and Detectives Horgan and Nolan were hunched over it together, making a record of every text and every email on it, and copying out its list of contacts.

Katie came across and set down a cup of coffee in front of each of them. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked them.