Dark Dawn (29 page)

The two men sat in silence, sizing each other up.

‘Ward on his way?’ Lynch asked.

O’Neill didn’t answer.

‘Told you to wait, didn’t he? But that’s not really your style, is it?’

O’Neill remained silent, staring at Lynch who raised his bottle and took another drink.

‘You know, when I was in the Maze, I used to dream about stuff like this. Simple things. Sitting in a bar. A cold beer. It got so that it was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. That’s what happens, when you’re lying there alone, staring at the ceiling, thinking about something for so long.’

Lynch paused.

‘It’s funny. Things are never the same in real life. It’s never like they tell you it’s going to be. Not like you imagined it. Never like they promise.’

‘Try telling it to the families of the three people you killed.’

Lynch sighed and looked around the room. O’Neill was trying to get under his skin. What he didn’t know was that Lynch had seen those three people every single day since he’d been released. He’d be sitting watching TV and suddenly, out of nowhere, they’d be there in his head. Asking him, ‘Why me? What did I do? How are you sitting there watching TV?’ The questions. Over and over again. Lynch pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

‘You know one or two things about disappointment though, don’t you, Detective? About life not always turning out like you’d planned.’

O’Neill was growing tired of the philosophy.

‘What do you want, Lynch?’

The other man looked him in the eye.

‘I want to save your life.’ Lynch paused. ‘I want to be on the other side, just for a change.’

‘Very noble. I’m not sure—’

‘Listen. There’s a contract out on you. You’re a target. Whatever you’re doing, it’s pissing folk off. You’ve been sticking your nose where you shouldn’t be.’

‘Laganview?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say. But I’ll tell you this. You’ve upset a few people and they don’t like it. Word’s been sent down. You’ve got to go.’

‘So what are you then, the friendly warning?’

‘Not really my style, O’Neill. Ask Ward, he’ll tell you. I’m the doer, not the talker. My face is the last thing you see, before the lights go out.’

Lynch’s voice was casual, as if he was stating the most ordinary, everyday fact. It was this, more than anything, that convinced O’Neill he was telling the truth.

‘Who the fuck are you threatening?’

‘I’m not threatening. I’m just telling.’

O’Neill thought about arresting him there and then, charging him with threatening the life of a police officer. It would be his word against Lynch’s, however. There were no witnesses, no one to corroborate the story. It wouldn’t go anywhere and it wouldn’t get him anywhere near Laganview. He thought about why Lynch had brought him to Mint. Why here? He could have walked into the Last Stop and sat down. They could have spoken anywhere. Or could they? From what Ward said, Lynch wasn’t the sort of person who issued warnings. O’Neill looked across the table.

‘The plan’s changed, hasn’t it? In your head anyway. I mean, you’re sitting here, talking to me. We could have done this anywhere. There’s CCTV all over this place. Plenty of witnesses, plenty of folk to see us talking. You’d be the first in the frame if anything happened to me.’

‘Very good, Detective.’

‘But there’s more. It’s this place, Mint. You
want
to be seen talking to me – you want certain people to see. Whatever your game is, you’re now just as likely to get shot as I am.’

Lynch raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.

‘Perhaps the PSNI aren’t as stupid as people say they are,’ he noted. ‘Hell, if there’s hope for you, there’s hope for us all.’

‘So why? Why the change of heart?’

Lynch gave a small shrug.

‘A man’s got to have a creed,’ O’Neill prompted.

‘You’re right there. As for why, that’s a tough question. Why is a psychologist’s question, not a peeler’s. Why is not something you need to worry about; you just stick with the who.’

O’Neill had all the pieces. Laganview. The George. McCann. Now this place. They were all connected.

‘So how does it all fit?’

‘You’re the detective, O’Neill. You tell me.’ Lynch drained his beer and made to get up and leave. ‘I will say one thing though. Sometimes the answer’s right there, right in front of your face. In fact, it can be so close, you look right past it.’

Lynch got up. ‘Do me a favour and tell Ward I had to rush off.’

O’Neill watched him weave his way through the bar and out the door. What the fuck just happened? He took the untouched bottle in front of him and lifted it to his mouth. A young waitress in a short skirt swooped up to the table. She was beautiful, with long blonde hair and a thick Eastern-European accent.

‘Is this finished?’ she asked, reaching for Lynch’s bottle.

‘Yes, it . . .’

O’Neill’s voice trailed off mid-sentence. He looked at the girl, then at the bottle of beer in his hand.

‘Where you from, love?’

‘Czech Republic,’ the girl answered defensively.

‘And what about this?’ Lynch held up the bottle of
Tyskie.

‘Is Polish. We have others if you prefer.’

O’Neill looked at the bottle. ‘No. It’s fine.’

The kid at Laganview hadn’t shown up anywhere because he didn’t have a record. He didn’t have a record because he was a foreigner. No one had reported him missing because he wasn’t here long enough for anyone to know him. Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania. O’Neill wondered how often all these young ones phoned home. The boys would be the worst. His folks might not even know he was missing.

And what about the beating? He was murdered, but they had tried to make it look like a punishment beating. O’Neill’s eyes searched the room. He caught sight of the doorway and the bouncer, with his shaved head looking out towards the street. He remembered Lynch and his nod of recognition as he’d walked in.

Ward appeared at the table, flustered, breathing hard.

‘Thought I told you to wait.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to you in the car. Let’s go.’

On their way out the door, O’Neill pretended to drop his lighter. He bent down to pick it up, glancing at the bouncer’s footwear. He was wearing some kind of black Army boot, with thick soles and canvas uppers.

At the end of the alley he stopped under the pretence of lighting a cigarette. He looked back at Mint and observed the bouncer in the doorway, the way he held himself, the way he owned the space around the door. He was ex-Army, O’Neill was almost certain.

When the two detectives turned the corner, Ivan Walczak stepped away from the door. He walked across the alley, away from the other doorman and the people entering the bar. The bouncer flipped open his mobile phone and dialled a number. Someone answered. Walczak looked both ways, up and down the lane, before speaking.

‘We’ve got problem.’

Back at Musgrave Street, O’Neill pulled the CCTV from the Molloy attack. He watched the footage outside Mint as people went in and out of the bar. Molloy was drinking inside and Lynch was hidden in the shadow of a nearby doorway. On the door the two bouncers stood, slowly letting people in and out. The shorter one was there again, along with another taller one.

Every twenty minutes or so the bouncer with the shaved head would disappear from the door, leaving his partner to hold the fort. He’d be gone for a few minutes, somewhere inside the bar. If he was dealing, he’d know the club’s CCTV, where the blind spots were. It was the same with every doorman across the city. The rule was, if you were going to give someone a hiding, you made sure you knew where your black spots were.

On three occasions O’Neill watched the bouncer cross the alley for a smoke. From there he could keep an eye on the door and step in if he needed to. O’Neill watched him take a final drag of his cigarette and toss it along the wall.

That was it. That was his evidence. Every contact leaves a trace . . . the science didn’t lie.

At four in the morning O’Neill drove back down to the Cathedral Quarter. The place was dead and everyone had gone home.

He got out of the car and walked along the alley, hugging the wall. When he was level with the doorway, he bent down. Sure enough, scattered in a 6-foot area were four fresh cigarette ends.

O’Neill snapped his hands into a pair of white rubber gloves and put the cigarette butts into a plastic evidence bag – a little present for Forensics in the morning.

The main forensics lab was in Jordanstown, five miles along the coast from Belfast. It was a three-storey glass building, surrounded by a 30-foot perimeter fence and with round-the-clock security. At 7 a.m., O’Neill’s was the only car in the car park. He’d flashed his warrant card and Security lifted the barrier. The guard said he could wait if he wanted, but no one would be in until at least half eight.

O’Neill sat in the Mondeo, burning one B&H after another. He stared across the grey waters of Belfast Lough. Dotted along the other shore were Bangor, Holywood and Cultra. He wondered if Spender was at his desk, busy carving up the city before most people were out of their beds. On the passenger seat beside him sat a clear plastic bag with four cigarette ends.

Cars started to dribble in after eight. O’Neill was out and at the door before the first arrival, a man in his fifties, had even swiped his card. The detective showed his warrant card.

‘O’Neill. Musgrave Street.’

The man’s brow furrowed, unimpressed at being stopped before he was even in the door. It was always the same with CID. They thought the whole world revolved around them. And when they were making house calls, you just knew they were after something.

‘Do you know what time McBurnie gets in at?’ O’Neill asked.

McBurnie was his man. They’d only spoken briefly, over the boot-print, but it would be enough. He was young and wouldn’t mind bending the rules, putting a rush on something if O’Neill asked.

‘He’s not in today. Friday is his day off. Was he expecting you?’

The man spoke like a headmaster, offended at O’Neill’s impertinence. It was the old CID arrogance, showing up unannounced, clicking their fingers and expecting the world to jump to attention. There were rules, regulations, procedures. That was how things worked. Not flashing a badge and expecting everyone to fall at your feet. The man walked through the door, leaving O’Neill on the other side holding his clear plastic bag.

O’Neill turned round and looked across the car park, embarrassed at having been denied. He walked back to the car and waited. If the bouncer had done Laganview, there was a tiny window of opportunity. He would have known Lynch and seen him talking to O’Neill the night before. He’d realize something was up. Shit . . . there was a good chance he’d taken off already! If he left the country, they’d never get him. O’Neill felt a ball of nausea growing in the pit of his stomach. He imagined himself at his Review Board, facing Wilson and three others across a large desk. He wasn’t going to lose Laganview over some senior lab tech, some jobsworth who loved his rules and thought it was his duty to enforce them.

Five minutes later, a Renault Clio pulled into a spot near O’Neill. A woman got out and started walking towards the entrance. She swiped her card and pulled open the door.

‘Hold it!’ O’Neill called, hurrying from his car. She didn’t flinch, clocking O’Neill for CID and knowing if he’d got past security, he checked out.

‘Hey, could you help me out? I’m supposed to get this to John McBurnie, but it’s his day off so I’m going to leave it for him. He’s on the first floor, isn’t he?’

‘No. Second.’

‘I’m always getting lost in this place.’

‘Out the lift and go right.’

‘Thanks,’ O’Neill replied.

In the second-floor lab his ‘friend’ was putting on a white coat as O’Neill entered.

‘How did you get in here?’ he demanded.

‘Listen. I need to apologize. We got off on the wrong foot,’ O’Neill said. ‘I know you’re coming here with sixty million things waiting to get done, and the last thing you need is some guy from CID grabbing you before you’ve even got your coat off.’

He held out his hand. ‘John O’Neill.’

The lab tech reluctantly shook his hand.

‘Robin Bradley,’ he grunted. ‘You know there are procedures round here, Detective. That is how we work. That’s how things get done.’

‘I know,’ O’Neill agreed. ‘And you do an amazing job. I can tell you, from the front line, the number of people we’ve put away on the back of what you do . . . real scum of the earth, doing horrific things. Robbery, assault, rape. They only go down because of you guys. We might grab them, but they’d be right out the door again if it wasn’t for you.’

The man reluctantly started to soften. He looked at the clear plastic bag in the detective’s hand.

‘I always think it’s a pity you never get to see what happens out there,’ O’Neill continued. ‘See the results of everything you do. The faces of the victims, when they know the guy who mugged them, who put them in hospital, who raped them, is going to go down. Or the old-age pensioners, their tears of relief, when the guys who robbed them of all their savings gets five years. It’s you guys who do it. It’s the labwork that gets the convictions.’

O’Neill was laying it on thick and Bradley rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what the cop was doing, but deep down inside, he liked hearing it and wanted to believe him.

‘So what’s in the bag then?’

‘A murderer.’

‘They look like cigarette butts to me,’ Bradley answered dryly.

‘We’re working the boy at Laganview. The sixteen year old. He was beaten to a pulp and left for dead. He’s someone’s son, but he’s still lying at the morgue. Hasn’t even been ID’d, let alone claimed. McBurnie got us this far with the boot-print and I think we’ve got our man. I’ve got one more ask though – and we need it yesterday, otherwise this guy’s going to split. Leave the country. And if he goes, we’ll never get him.’

O’Neill held up the plastic bag of cigarette ends.

‘I need a DNA match on these – cross-checked against the samples taken from the scene at Laganview.’

Bradley sighed, resigning himself to breaking one of his own golden rules.