Seventy Times Seven (8 page)

‘D’you have a copy of yesterday’s
Irish Times
please?’

That’s what she’d been told to say, so she’d said it. The guy behind the counter stared at her, the friendly smile nowhere to be seen now she’d said the code words.

‘Are you lookin for a particular story?’ he asked hesitantly.

It was the right question, so she answered.

‘Danny McGuire: any stories about him?’

The guy looked her up and down. ‘Is that right? And would you be wantin it delivered anywhere in particular?’

Danny had told her that the newsagent would be suspicious, but if she said exactly what he’d told her she’d be fine.

‘To Old McDonald,’ replied Angela.

The guy still looked tense, but he nodded as if he was satisfied.

‘What’s the message?’

‘Mr McGuire wants to send his apologies, but he’s going to be a bit late for the meeting. He says he’ll explain it all when he gets there.’

The guy nodded again. ‘You’d better wait in case there’s an answer.’

As he turned to go Angela said, ‘Oh. Sorry, one other thing, do you have any Easter eggs?’

The guy paused for a second. ‘Is that part of the message?’

‘No. Mr McGuire asked me to get him a couple of Easter eggs.’

The shopkeeper pointed behind her. ‘Over in the far corner, there’s Cadbury’s, Galaxy, the lot. He usually goes for the most expensive rather than the biggest.’

‘Thanks,’ said Angela as she headed off down one of the aisles.

It was only a small newsagent’s, but there was a larger than average selection of eggs. She chose what looked to her like a couple of upmarket boxes and headed back to the counter.

What was she thinking, running errands for Danny McGuire: getting involved in God only knows what? She’d already worked out that ‘Old McDonald’ must be E. I. O’Leary, the commander in chief of the IRA. ‘Old McDonald had a farm, E. I. E. I. O’Leary.’ It wasn’t the hardest code to crack.

As Angela stood waiting for the shopkeeper to return she glanced out of the window. Suddenly her stomach churned over. A guy in a black leather jacket was staring at her from across the street. He made no attempt to disguise what he was doing: didn’t drop to his knees and start tying his shoelaces or pretend to be looking in a shop window, or even turn away: none of the usual. He didn’t seem to care that he’d been spotted: just stood there, making sure she got the message that he was watching her.

Angela’s heart started pounding in her chest. The guy was pointing something at the window that looked like a gun.

She was about to duck down when she noticed the small set of headphones and the cable connected to whatever it was he was holding. Not a gun, but a microphone.

Had he been listening in on the conversation? Angela started replaying in her mind everything she’d said. She’d done exactly what Danny had told her to: if anything went wrong it wasn’t her fault.

Angela wasn’t sure what to do. Danny hadn’t mentioned anything about guys with goddamn microphones. There was no script to work off.

The shopkeeper was taking his time. It wasn’t that long a message. ‘What are you doing, sending it in Morse code?’ she murmured under her breath.

She wanted out of there.

‘Calm down, calm down‚’ she said to herself.

The door to the back room flew open with a bang, making her jump.

‘Christ!’

The shopkeeper was behind the counter again. ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ said Angela. ‘I was looking at the guy across the street pointing the bloody microphone at us.’

‘What guy?’ asked the shopkeeper.

Angela looked out of the window again, but no one was there. The man had disappeared. ‘I swear on my mother’s life there was a—’ Angela stopped herself. ‘Doesn’t matter! My mind was running away with me,’ she continued. ‘I haven’t slept for nearly thirty hours. I’m imagining things.’

The shopkeeper’s face remained impassive: he didn’t seem to care.

‘You’ve to tell yer man not to worry. They know all about last night and he’s to make his way over when he can. Old McDonald still wants to see him though, but there’s no rush.’

Angela thanked him and headed for the door.

The shopkeeper called after her, ‘Are you going to take the eggs?’

‘Jeez, I’m going off my head here,’ said Angela returning to the counter. ‘How much do I owe?’

The newsagent shook his head and gave a wry smile. ‘Yer all right, there’s no charge.’

As Angela reached across the counter to pick up the bag of eggs the shopkeeper suddenly reached out and caught her by the arm. ‘You mind how ye go there, all right? Don’t get too involved.’ He let go of her arm, and started busying himself with the cigarettes stacked in rows on the wall behind: acting like nothing had happened, ignoring Angela now, as though she had already left the shop.

Angela wanted to ask, ‘Don’t get too involved in what?’ but she knew he wouldn’t answer. Danny McGuire had tilted her world up on its end: everything she recognised as familiar was still there, but it had all slid into a messy bundle in a corner of the room that was her life.

Back out on the rain-splattered street Angela looked for signs of the man in the leather jacket, but he was nowhere to be seen. Aside from a few scraps of soggy paper floating along the gutter, the street was empty.

As Angela set off, she felt certain that she was being watched.

The heavy rain had soaked through her thin jumper making her blouse cling uncomfortably to her skin and causing her to shiver. The shop was only a short distance from Danny’s house. He’d laughed when she’d suggested taking her car, but Angela was wishing she’d ignored him.

‘By the time you’ve opened the door and turned on the ignition you’d be on your way back,’ he’d said.

She had another look over her shoulder before breaking into a run.

Angela reached the corner of Derrybeg Lane and stopped. The white van was gone, but standing on the pavement next to where it had been parked stood the guy she’d seen outside the shop.

She considered running back the way she had just come: but where would she run to? In the brief moment’s hesitation the guy had spotted her. He pushed himself off the metal railings and started towards her.

Angela decided her only option was to keep going, try and pass the guy: get as close to Danny’s house as possible and if he tried anything, scream the goddamn place down. But fear had left her paralysed, frozen to the spot, unable to move in any direction.

When the guy was only yards away Angela suddenly came to her senses: she lashed out, swinging the bag of Easter eggs in a wide arc and catching the guy full in the face. It was never going to stop him, but at least she was moving now: taking some action. She let go of the bag and launched herself between the parked cars that lined the whole of the street.

She didn’t see the dark-blue car, or hear the tyres squealing as it skidded to a halt, but she was aware of her legs being knocked from under her: aware of her breath being punched from her lungs as she bounced off the bonnet and landed heavily on the ground. She was winded, but before the driver of the car had even opened his door she was up and running, breathing heavily as she struggled to get her lungs working again. Her only objective now was to get to the end of Derrybeg Lane and the safety of Danny’s house.

When Angela reached the front door she realised she had no idea which key fitted the lock. She looked over her shoulder and saw the guy running across the road towards her: he was less than a hundred yards away, shouting something she couldn’t make out.

The small clump of keys Danny had given her slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. She quickly scooped them up, fumbled for another key and tried again. On her third attempt the key eventually slipped in. Angela stumbled into the hallway and slammed the door hard behind her.

‘Danny! Danny,’ she shouted. ‘Are you there?’

As she stood in the narrow hallway listening to the sound of her own breathing she became aware of the stinging sensation in her legs. Angela looked down and saw blood trickling down her shins from ragged gashes on both of her knees.

‘Danny!’

The knuckles on her right hand were skinned as well, and her wrist was throbbing painfully.

Angela made her way cautiously upstairs to the bedroom.

‘Danny, you there?’

Angela winced with pain as she pressed her damaged hand against the bedroom door and eased it open. The cup of tea she’d made earlier was still sitting on the bedside table: the half-eaten piece of toast on the plate beside it. Everything was exactly as she’d left it, but somehow – Angela knew – the whole world was different. The house seemed to reverberate with empty silence.

A realisation struck her with such intensity it made her reach out to steady herself. There was a moment where she thought she was going to collapse. She’d been in such a state of fear when she’d run up the driveway that she failed to register her surroundings fully, but subliminally she must have taken the information in. Angela reluctantly made her way over to the window and pulled aside one of the curtains. She was right . . . the space outside Danny’s garage was empty: her car was gone.

The guy in the leather jacket was standing across the street staring up at her impassively: leaning against the railings again, letting her know he wasn’t going away.

Angela stepped back from the window.

Another thought struck her. Danny had used her to lure the guy away from the front of the house so that he could leave without being seen.

‘You’re a sneaky son-of-a-bitch, Danny McGuire,’ she said to herself as she looked around the empty room.

Suddenly her whole body seemed to ache.

‘Do you think if you saw him again you would recognise him?’

‘Which one – the black guy shooting up the alleyway or the guy from Cottondale with the funny accent who saved everyone’s lives and knows how to handle a shotgun?’ She saw the two FBI agents exchange a glance, but thought nothing of it.

‘The guy with the funny accent,’ replied the grumpier of the two.

The image of Finn lying on the sofa snoring as Marie snuck out the door earlier that morning flashed through her mind. ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure I would recognise him again,’ she said. ‘Why, do you have photographs or photofits or whatever they’re called?’

‘Not yet, but we’re getting there. Most people in the bar were watching the asshole doing the shooting rather than paying attention to who or what he was shooting at.’

Marie’s attention was drifting again. There was something about these guys that pushed all her ‘off’ buttons simultaneously.

She’d been surprised at the amount of media attention the story was attracting. When she’d arrived at the police station earlier she’d had to push her way through a crowd of journalists and news cameras to get up the steps. It wasn’t until she was safely inside the building that she’d fully registered why they were all there: the shootings at McHales and at the hospital were front-page material. It got her thinking: made her realise that she really didn’t want to be a part of all this.

The two agents who’d travelled down from Birmingham had kept her waiting for nearly an hour. She was cold and not in the best of moods. Marie had been sitting in the air-conditioned interview room for too long answering dumb questions: the same dumb questions she’d been asked the day before, the only difference being, the two dumb nuts doing the asking were the FBI instead of ‘Ball’ and his local deputies. They’d introduced themselves as Agent Joe Evelyn and Agent Jeff Kneller with a silent ‘K’. Kneller looked like he smoked sixty a day, two at a time. The centre of his grey moustache was stained nicotine-brown, as were the middle and index fingers of his right hand. Marie supposed he was grumpy because he’d run out. She couldn’t figure out why the other one – Evelyn – kept staring at her chest.

Marie felt her stomach cramp and realised she’d need some painkillers pretty soon. No wonder she’d been feeling a bit cranky the past few days; she’d put it down to the circumstances, but she knew now that wasn’t the only reason. About half an hour into the interview Marie had caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Her shoulders were tense, sitting high, and she was making no attempt to disguise the bored expression. It suddenly struck her as odd that she was wearing a suit: she never wore a suit. Why had she gone to the bother of dressing up? Was she trying look more respectable? What did she care if the FBI thought she’d come too casually dressed?

The jacket was a light-grey serge material tailored to fit her slim waist. The skirt came down to just below her knees and was fitted too, although – there was no denying it – since Alfredo had died she’d gained a few pounds and the skirt looked lumpy in all the wrong places, especially when she was sitting down. She was even wearing a pair of sensible shoes: a two-inch heel that was easy to walk in. Between that and the white fitted blouse, she figured she looked like she was going for a job in a bank.

‘Mrs Weir?’

Her focus was back on the grumpy one, Kneller.

‘What?’

‘You’re the only one so far who seems to have had a good look at him . . . or spoken to him. Do you think you could give us some more detail on what he looked like? Fill in some of the blanks?’

There he was again: staring into her eyes like he was going to ask her out on a date.

‘Well, other than what I told the guys yesterday, I don’t know what else to say. Everything about him was average: his hair, his height, his clothes . . . his teeth, just . . . average.’

‘When you say “funny accent” where d’you think he was from?’ continued Kneller.

Up to this point everything she’d told them had been the truth, but Marie knew she was about to cross the line. She was deliberately going to lie and she wasn’t even sure why.

‘Poland maybe . . . I don’t know, all he asked me for was a beer – “Beer”, you know. It tastes the same in any language . . . sounds the same too.’ The last comment got the other one – Evelyn – smiling, but it earned him a look from Grumpy Kneller.

‘I know this has been a traumatic experience for you, Mrs Weir—’

Marie interrupted him. ‘Actually it’s Bain. Weir was my married name, and as the sorry loser who was my husband is now leading the life he really deserved all along, I’m just plain old Marie Bain again . . . If that’s okay? And before you go on‚ let me just say, you have no goddamn idea how traumatic the last few hours have been, so don’t even try and empathise, it’s fucking patronising. Most of the trauma I’ve suffered has been from freezing my tits off in here answering the same dumb questions over and over again like somehow the whole goddamn thing was my fault. So please let’s just get finished so that I can go home and try to find the rewind button – or better still the erase button – and maybe forget about the fucking nightmare that has become my life.’

‘I understand and I am really sorry, we just wanted to hear it from you instead of reading through second-hand notes, but that’s fine. I understand . . . I really do . . . Let’s wrap it up. I have to ask you one last question, even though I think I already know the answer.’

Grumpy leant back in his chair and took off his glasses. ‘Are you willing to go to court when we eventually make some arrests?’

‘Can I say no?’ asked Marie.

‘Sure,’ he replied.

‘What happens then?’

‘We subpoena you and you have to go to court.’

‘So why ask?’

Marie put her head in her hand and drew her thumb and forefinger together till they met on the bridge of her nose. ‘I thought it was all sewn up: the banker’s wife did it?’ said Marie eventually.

‘The guy who was killed in the bar yesterday was a professional hit man: he only fired two shots in the direction of the banker’s table, and I think it was just unfortunate that the banker’s head was in the way of one of them . . . he certainly wasn’t the target. All the other shots – eight in total – were fired at your “Polish” friend. There’s no doubt that Culo Conrado was aiming at him. Now his partner who was waiting in the alley is also a professional, by the name of Vincent Lee Croll. The guy’s a dope-head with the mental capacity of a battery hen, but that hasn’t stopped him from killing two police officers last night and the chances are he’s not going to stop until the Polish guy is dead too. If Lee Croll doesn’t finish the job, he doesn’t get paid and if he doesn’t get paid he doesn’t get his drugs and so on and so on. We are talking about a guy who put the “wreck” in “recreational drugs”. So you’ll forgive my partner and me for wanting to find out as much as possible first-hand. We want to catch this asshole before he kills another few innocents in his pursuit of his own wealth and happiness. If you find it a little inconvenient to be here answering a few silly fucking questions then I apologise, but as I’ve said, the situation has gotten a whole lot worse since you left here last night and we’d be very grateful if you’d bear with us just a little longer.’

Grumpy pushed his chair back and stood up.

Marie could see that he was angry, but she gave him credit for trying to contain it: maybe he wasn’t such an asshole after all.

‘There are a lot of other places we’d rather be right now too – Miss Bain – than in here investigating who killed Culo Conrado and the subsequent death of two of our colleagues, but you know what they say: “When there’s shit flying around watch out for the asshole.” Unfortunately for me, today I have to be the asshole.’

Marie smiled faintly at the image, but Kneller’s face didn’t crack.

‘I’m not making jokes here, Miss Bain,’ he continued. ‘The quicker we can get Vincent Lee Croll off the street the quicker we’ll know why he was trying to hit the Polish guy and hopefully find out who the hell the Polish guy is. But until then, there is a very real risk that the Polish guy is gonna want you dead too. You witnessed him commit a murder. Mr Lee Croll would probably like a word with you as well. And if all that isn’t bad enough there’s a Mr Hernando De Garza skulking around in the background. You ever heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘Well let’s hope things stay that way, cause he is the nastiest little piece of shit that ain’t already in hell . . . and that’s because hell refused him entry. He deals drugs, he deals arms, he deals hookers and he has people murdered for looking at him the wrong way. Unfortunately he also pays his taxes so a lot of powerful people have him over to their house for dinner.’

‘Why you telling me all this: he invited us round for drinks?’

‘No. He employs lowlifes like Croll and Conrado to do his dirty work. And if De Garza is behind all of this then God help you. There you have it. Anything smartass you’d like to add?’

Marie said nothing. She wanted to get up and walk out, but she knew the guy was right. She was in a situation that was completely beyond her realm of experience and if she was being honest she was scared as hell. Marie’s first line of defence was a sarcastic comment, or a cutting remark, but these guys weren’t going to take any shit from her. For once she didn’t have a comeback.

‘If you’re trying to frighten me, Agent Kneller: congratulations.’ Marie felt her cheeks burn crimson and her stomach cramp again. There was a squealing noise as the legs of the chair scraped along the polished stone floor. Marie stood abruptly and bent over to pick up her bag.

‘I have to go.’

The other agent who had barely said a word suddenly jumped in.

‘Wait, please. Let’s just rewind for a second . . .’

But Marie didn’t let him finish. ‘I’m sorry, I really need to go. I’m trying to help you, I really am, but this whole situation is just too goddamn surreal. You’re talking to me like I was the one who pulled the trigger. You guys might have seen lots of people killed right in front of you, but it’s never happened to me. If you need me for anything else you can contact me through my lawyer or get your goddamn fucking subpoena.’ She started to falter. ‘And I’m . . . you know . . . I just want to get the hell out of here.’

Kneller was backtracking now, aware that he’d come on too strong. ‘If you want to wait for five minutes we’ll arrange for someone to take you home.’

‘I can make my own way,’ said Marie as she headed for the exit.

Kneller was on his feet now, holding his hand up to stop her.

‘Miss Bain, I’d like to apologise. We are all feeling the pressure at the moment. I didn’t mean to get so het up. Obviously you’re free to do what you like, but I’d warn you that all my instincts are telling me this is a nasty situation we got on our hands here. Why don’t you let one of our guys give you a lift and we’ll arrange to talk to you later. Take the rest of the weekend, but we will need you here first thing on Monday morning. Sure, we can do that through a lawyer, but I’d rather we kept it informal and stayed friends. Now, the front of the building is swarming with press and it really wouldn’t be a good idea to get your photograph in the papers or on television right now in case Lee Croll or the Polish guy or De Garza see it. Then, who knows what sort of trouble you could find yourself in.’

He was standing right in front of her, blocking her way.

Marie stared at the floor. ‘I just want to go home,’ she said in a quiet voice.

Agent Kneller took a step to the side and held open the door for her.

As she walked out into the corridor Marie heard him call after her, but she’d stopped listening, something about leaving by the back entrance.

The door slammed shut before he’d finished.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She didn’t realise what she said‚ but she will. Probably hit her first thing in the morning. That’s when all my revelations come to me: soon as I wake up.’

‘You see her eyes switch direction when she mentioned the guy was Polish?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking there’s no way in the world the guy is Polish . . . I mean, she blushed too. But why would she lie? I’m also thinking I hope some dickhead doesn’t “accidentally” reveal Miss Bain’s identity to the press. Lee Croll and the Polish guy who isn’t Polish would have no option but to look her up.’

‘D’you think De Garza’s involved?’

‘Conrado and Croll don’t work for anyone else.’

‘Feeding her to the press is too risky. She’s the only real witness we’ve got.’

‘It won’t take them long to figure out who she is anyway. All they got to do is ask a few of the regular drinkers who the hot barmaid is. Might as well earn fifty bucks for passing on the information. She’s smartass enough to look after herself, don’t you think?’

‘I could be that dickhead for fifty bucks.’

‘You don’t need the fifty bucks.’

‘Cheap.’

Agent Kneller’s face almost cracked a smile. ‘Need to keep an extra-close eye on her then; make damn sure we’re there if Lee Croll or anyone else does show. It’s a gamble, but how else are we going to flush them out? You cold?’

‘Not as cold as she was,’ replied Evelyn. ‘You see her nipples sticking out her blouse?’

‘I was watching her eyes the whole time.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Turn the thermostat back up . . . dickhead.’