Little Criminals (18 page)

When John Grace’s home phone rang, he had just come down from the child’s bedroom and Sam was no more than ten minutes asleep, not yet beyond the reach of a persistently ringing phone. Mona was in the kitchen. Grace hurried across the living room and picked up the cordless.

‘John Grace.’

‘I’m told you’re the man to talk to about a thug named Frankie Crowe.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Colin O’Keefe. I need to talk to you about this Frankie Crowe fella.’

For a moment, Grace was puzzled, then the name clicked. He had met Assistant Commissioner Colin O’Keefe at a retirement party for a colleague, a superannuated super. He doubted if the AC remembered him. Given the general level of intoxication at the party, he hoped not.

‘What’s he done now?’ he said.

‘How soon can you get up here?’

‘That bad?’

‘Tell your missus not to wait up.’

When Martin Paxton came downstairs after checking on the hostage, there was a bullshitting session under way. Brendan Sweetman was telling Frankie, Milky and Dolly the story of a burglary he did in Rathmines, the one about the big dog coming howling up the stairs. ‘The hound of the Baskervilles, no kidding. Big as a bleeding donkey.’ The story ended with Brendan locking the dog in a closet and screaming at the owner to get the fuck back to his bedroom and count to five hundred.

‘Halfway down the stairs, I was, when the gobshite opened the closet. The dog came flying out, mad as a hen with piles.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Started biting the legs off yer man.’

Frankie laughed, although Martin knew that he’d heard it at least once before. Dolly’s face adopted what might have been a smile.

Frankie contributed the tale of the fuck-up at Harte’s Cross, and how he and Martin got a tip-off from Leo Titley and toddled off down to do a pub in Hicksville and how Titley fucked up the info on the job and they ended up with a lousy two hundred.

‘Not surprised,’ Brendan Sweetman said. He did a job with Leo once. ‘Culchie wanker.’

‘There was a bit of crack, mind,’ Frankie remembered. ‘Old bollocks in the pub, he looks at me like I’ve landed in a flying saucer.
Put away that gun
, he says. Middle of a job, the local yokel decides to come to the rescue of the oul bitch that runs the place.
Leave the lady alone
, says he, standing there like Rambo’s grandad. So I let him see the business end.
You want to keep your balls, Sir Galahad?
’

Brendan Sweetman laughed.

‘Shut him up, right off,’ Frankie said. ‘Another old guy, when I let off a couple of rounds to encourage the bitch to cough up some money, know what he did? He pissed himself. Standing there with his hands in the air, big wet patch all the way down his trousers.’

Martin Paxton stood up. ‘I need one last coffee. Anyone?’ Only Dolly nodded. As Martin left the room, Frankie looked at Brendan, pointed at the ceiling and said, ‘Lights out.’

When the small fat gunman came to switch off the light Angela said, ‘No, please, just a while more.’

He switched the light off.

‘Fuck you,’ she said.

He stood there, silhouetted in the doorway. She could hear the noise he was making chewing gum. After a few moments, he gave a grunt and turned away, pulling the door shut behind him.

‘Bastard!’

There was a second’s silence, then there was a very loud noise, and Angela could almost feel the concussion ripple through the room as the door shook from his kick. She sat up on the mattress her arms crossed in front of her body, clutching her elbows to stop herself shaking.

Someone shouted something from downstairs and she could hear the fat little man grunting a reply. When she heard him going down the stairs she sank back down on the mattress. A little later she heard loud male laughter from downstairs.

She took long, deep breaths. Again, she made an effort to hold at bay the thoughts she had resolved to shun. She tried to make sense of the chatter coming from downstairs, but it was muffled and disjointed, punctuated by laughter.

She turned on her side, knowing she was a long way from sleep. She heard a toilet flush, a door closing. It was like when she was a child, lying in the darkness of her bedroom at night, waiting for sleep, random thoughts floating in and out of her mind as she listened to the noises the adults made downstairs. It was the sound of life continuing. It was one of the ways she began to understand the size and the complexity of the world, and that she wasn’t the centre of it all, and that it didn’t stop when she went to bed and fell asleep.

With the knowledge that others’ lives go on even as we surrender to sleep, came an understanding of how the world goes on whether we’re there or not. It was an understanding that intrigued her in childhood and terrified her as a teenager, when she began to measure her own mortality.

Angela turned her face into the pillow and closed her eyes. She recognised that she was on the verge of admitting some of the thoughts she’d sworn to banish. She needed to think other thoughts. Very deliberately, she began trying to visualise what the small fat one looked behind his mask. She imagined that face, chubby and sweaty, vacant and slack-jawed. And in her imagination, she spat on it.

When Brendan came back downstairs, Martin Paxton was trying to encourage Milky to tell the others how he got his nickname.

‘Ah, Jesus, leave me alone,’ Milky said, but he was grinning. He liked the story. He lit up a Player’s, used a thumbnail to remove a flake of tobacco from his tongue. ‘You tell it,’ he said to Martin.

‘What were you, twenty, something like that?’

‘Eighteen, nineteen. It was the first gun I ever got my hands on. A starting pistol. A newsagent’s out in Bray, up the town,’ Milky said. ‘And I did a bookies before that, same starting pistol. Stroked a couple of grand that time.’

‘Anyway, Milky walks into the newsagent’s, no customers, one bird behind the counter.
Hand it over
, he says, and your woman squeals and when he gets her to calm down he says,
Give me the money, all of it
. Now, there’s nothing she’d like to do more, and get Jesse James out of her shop, but there’s only a handful of notes in the register, fivers and tens, and she throws them on the counter. Anything over a twenty goes straight into a drop safe, she says, there’s no way she can get at it. So, Milky picks up the money and puts it in his pocket and stands there, the gun in his hand, big scarf over his mouth, your woman licking her lips. You know what he did?’

‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do!’

‘He grabbed a handful of chocolate bars and ran for the door.’

Brendan Sweetman snorted. ‘Good man, Milky!’

Milky shook his head. ‘Big GAA slob coming in, just finished practice, a hurley in his paws, takes a look at the starting pistol in my hand, gives me a smack in the mouth with the hurley and when I woke up the cops were standing over me, breaking their shite laughing.’

Martin said, ‘Tell them, when you were wheeled into the Joy, what the screws christened you.’

Milky sighed, looked up at the ceiling. ‘The Milky Bar Kid.’

There was a high-pitched hooting laugh from Dolly Finn, a series of short honking noises that came as much from his nose as his mouth. It was the first time any of them had heard Dolly laugh. The sight and the sound of Dolly laughing stoked the others and Milky threw his head back and chortled, Frankie Crowe’s shoulders were heaving. Martin looked across at Dolly and saw that he was blushing.

‘Jesus,’ Brendan said, ‘I’d love a pint. That’s what an evening like this needs, a bit of lubrication.’

Frankie shook his head. ‘Take it easy, lads. This whole thing, it could go like
click-click-click
, and we walk away with a bundle. Or, maybe we already did something wrong, and the cops are outside putting on their bulletproof vests.’

‘We’re cruising,’ Sweetman said.

Frankie said, ‘It happens. Whatever way it goes, best chance we have, keep clear heads. There’s lots of time later for cracking bottles.’

Dolly Finn said, ‘How long you reckon?’

‘We’re got a schedule – short and sharp. So far, we’re on track.’

Brendan Sweetman poked a finger in the direction of the ceiling. ‘That one? What you reckon’s the safest thing to do with her?’

‘Don’t see why we can’t hand her back spick and span. She hasn’t seen any faces, right? No names? Should be OK.’ Frankie shrugged. ‘I mean, you can’t be a hundred per cent on a thing like this, but the way we’re going, no reason we can’t pat her on the arse and send her home to hubby.’

There were two gardai in the kitchen of the Kennedy home, with the telephone-monitoring equipment. Two more were on permanent duty in the hall. All armed. There was little likelihood of the gang coming back to the house, but it wasn’t the kind of thing anyone wanted to take a chance on.

Justin Kennedy was in his bedroom, mooching around. Nothing to do. Too tense to sit for more than a few minutes. It was – what? – he checked his watch – after ten o’clock. Twenty-four hours since this – Jesus, Angela had been
kidnapped
– since this began. Another twenty-four hours to the deadline – the phone call from the kidnappers. The instructions for the ransom. Nothing would happen until at least then.

The important thing was, no panic. This could be handled. There was a problem. We have something they want. They have something – and the fact that it’s Angela can’t be allowed get in the way of dealing with the problem – they have something we want. There has to be a transaction. Take it in steps, no surprises, nothing to make them jumpy. This can be managed.

After the gang had left the house, Kennedy was up all night, comforting the children until they dozed off, then drinking coffee and pacing the hall, mobile in hand. He made a phone call at 6 a.m. Then another at 6.15, to Angela’s sister in Paris. He told her what had happened and asked her to take a flight home that morning, to organise the family end of things, to break the news to Angela’s mother, to help with the kids. Elizabeth was a first-rate organiser, with the deepest love for her younger sister, and she’d handle this end of it so well he’d never have to give it a thought. She agreed to come immediately.

It was not until precisely 9 a.m., in obedience to the kidnappers’ orders, that Kennedy contacted the police. Through the night, he thought carefully about how best to do this. He made a phone call to a senior adviser in the office of the Minister for Justice, a man on whose invitation the Kennedys recently attended a major charity event for Down’s syndrome children. Justin explained what was happening, and asked that the garda commissioner be informed, and that the strictest confidentiality be maintained. Within ten minutes, the first gardai arrived at the front door.

In the hours since they’d been contacted, the police had fixed the phone line, wired it for monitoring and put a protective team in place. A specialist team of officers in white overalls went through each room, photographing, fingerprinting and searching. The living room and the kitchen were still out of bounds to Justin. A chief superintendent – Hogg, his name was – had come to the house and told Justin that the gardai had never yet lost a kidnap victim.

‘We have to advise against paying a ransom, Mr Kennedy,’ Hogg said. ‘The principle is well established. Paying the ransom creates an incentive, so this kind of thing happens again. Maybe not to your family, but that’s what happens.’ He looked Justin in the eye. ‘What we find, generally, in this situation, is that people listen carefully to this advice.’ He paused, then he said, ‘And they make private arrangements for the ransom to be ready. Just in case. It may never get to that stage. And it’s not something we encourage, but I’m aware we’re dealing here with human beings.’

‘If it was your family?’

‘Happily, that’s hypothetical.’

Justin nodded. ‘I’m still staggered by all this, but I think I know what I have to do.’

As it happened, the first call Justin Kennedy had made, three hours before contacting the authorities, was to his friend Daragh O’Suilleabhain, principal partner of Flynn O’Meara Tully & Co. He explained what happened. O’Suilleabhain said, ‘Jesus Christ,’ then he said ‘Uh-huh’ a few times, otherwise he waited until Kennedy finished speaking. Then he said, ‘Sit tight, Justin. Whatever it takes, we’ll get Angela back.’

They agreed that O’Suilleabhain would take charge of raising the million in cash. By the time the police arrived at Kennedy’s house, O’Suilleabhain had contacted two directors of the principal bank through which Flynn O’Meara Tully & Co. did business. He swore them to secrecy and the job of sourcing the ransom cash was begun. O’Suilleabhain rang Kennedy twice, keeping him informed of progress. During the second call, he told Justin he had confidentially briefed a psychologist who did work for the company. When Justin thought the time was right, counselling would be available for the children, and for Angela.

Now, Chief Superintendent Hogg was saying to Justin, ‘I must ask you to inform my people of each and every step you intend to take, relating to the ransom demand. As I say, we’d find it difficult to interfere, but we must know what’s happening, or – well, you can imagine.’

Kennedy’s first instinct was to hold back from telling the police about his contact with Daragh O’Suilleabhain. Angela’s safe return was Kennedy’s only goal; the police had wider ambitions. Part of their strategy would be aimed at catching the gang. Cutting the police out of this made sense up to a point. But trying to keep the arrangements secret from the them, even as they listened to his phone calls, was to invite disaster. Kennedy told Superintendent Hogg about the preparations already being made through Daragh O’Suilleabhain, and the detective wrote down the details.