Little Criminals (22 page)

The banker nodded. ‘We’ve got the money assembled, more or less complete at this stage – and given that we’ve got all today to finish the job, I can’t see any problems.’

O’Suilleabhain said, ‘I gather it’s a pretty hefty package, and maybe we’ll need to talk to the bastards about how they want it delivered.’

‘Pretty hefty,’ the banker said, ‘but portable. A million in fifties, we’re talking about 20,000 banknotes, which weighs maybe forty, forty-five pounds. It fits into two rather solid holdalls.’

Daragh said, ‘What about getting the money to the bastards?’

Justin said, ‘I’m waiting – about half eleven tonight – to be told when, where and how.’

‘What about transporting it?’

The banker said, ‘We have several anonymous-looking, secure vehicles that we occasionally use for discreetly transporting large amounts. We’ve not yet talked to anyone about this, but these vehicles are already wired for GPS tracking, if we want to take that course.’

Justin shook his head. ‘I don’t know, maybe the police—’

Daragh cut the matter short. ‘It’s an option.’

The accountant led a brief discussion of the procedure whereby Flynn O’Meara Tully would reimburse the bank but Daragh brushed aside all but the barest details. Justin’s assets, although more than enough to cover the ransom, were tied up in property and stocks. The bank’s role was merely to provide the ransom cash in a hurry. Daragh wrapped up the meeting soon after, and when the two functionaries left he had a secretary bring in a couple of cups of coffee.

‘You bearing up, old son?’

‘Once I get instructions from the fuckers I’ll know how long it’s going to take to nail this down. The forty-eight-hour deadline is tonight, a bit after eleven o’clock.’

‘Angela’s strong, Justin. She’ll come through this.’ He put a hand on Justin’s shoulder and his rough voice softened. ‘Hold on to that.’Justin had seen it done several times, Daragh applying his professional vocabulary of concern. Being on the receiving end, he found himself totally convinced of the man’s sincerity, and grateful for it.

He tried to discuss the mechanics involved in liquidating assets to repay Flynn O’Meara Tully, but Daragh shook his head. ‘Time enough for that. Money’s how we keep score, but right now the game is suspended and money’s just a tool to do a job. When it’s all over, we can shuffle the paper around.’

The best part of twelve hours later, after three further conversations with O’Suilleabhain, by phone, Justin Kennedy knew that everything was in place. Then, midnight came and went, and the forty-eight-hour point was passed, and the bastards didn’t ring with their ransom instructions. Justin’s face had a film of sweat. He was sitting in his kitchen, at the table, house phone in front of him, his mobile too, a couple of bored telephone technicians tweaking the monitoring equipment, and three gardai – including Chief Superintendent Hogg – standing around.

And the bastards didn’t ring.

The gunmen had not only taken the Rolex that Angela had given him, but the watch he wore before that and two others of his that they’d found in a bedroom drawer. Justin checked the watch he’d borrowed from Daragh O’Suilleabhain. Twelve thirty-three. ‘Something’s gone wrong,’ he told the policemen. ‘Wednesday night, they left the house at eleven-thirty, sometime around then. They’re an hour late ringing.’

‘These are not businessmen, Mr Kennedy,’ Hogg said. ‘We can’t expect punctuality. I know it’s difficult, but patience is important in these circumstances if you’re not to wear yourself out.’

It was all very well for the police. They’d been sympathetic, respectful, obviously efficient. They wanted to get Angela back safely, and get their hands on the kidnappers. Just as obviously, for them this was a professional task. The detachment was, he supposed, necessary. But, Jesus, it was like they were plumbers trying to fix a broken pipe.

Justin had done nothing wrong. He’d set about raising the ransom. The gang said it was OK to contact the police, they were expecting it. He’d done exactly as they said. And still the bastards hadn’t called.

It was like every fibre in his body had been stretched, twisted and rubbed raw. He’d hardly slept for two days and yet he felt not tired but electrified.

‘What the fuck are they up to?’ he asked no one in particular.

One of the policemen that came with Chief Superintendent Hogg – they’d been introduced but Kennedy didn’t catch the name – said, ‘I know these people, sir, and believe me, you wouldn’t want to set your watch by them. Men like this, they say forty-eight hours, they mean two or three days.’

Hogg said, ‘Detective Inspector Grace is right, Mr Kennedy. This means nothing. Besides, it may be they’re aiming to stretch your nerves, push you off balance.’

Kennedy didn’t reply. He looked at Daragh’s watch. It was twelve thirty-seven, four minutes since last he checked the time.

*

Poor sod
.

Grace reckoned there’d be no phone call tonight.
You wouldn’t want to set your watch by them
was meant to comfort the hostage’s husband, so it understated his own worries. Could be that Frankie Crowe said forty-eight hours because he thought it sounded good at the time, but he hadn’t meant it to be taken literally. Could be that he’d gone on the piss, celebrating his criminal brilliance, and he’d wake up in the morning remembering there was something he was supposed to do last night. Could be that something went wrong and Frankie disposed of the hostage and was lying low, unaware that the police knew of his involvement.

If that’s the way it’s gone down, most likely Frankie will turn up at his flat one of these days and we’ll take him and he’ll roll over. And before long we’ll be wearing white overalls and digging up a patch of earth in the Dublin mountains, with masks on our faces to filter the stench
.

There was something different about this case. There was the possibility of disaster, yet there was also a sense of satisfaction. A sense of responsibility. Almost every case John Grace was involved with, from burglary to murder, required the police to pick over the debris of a crime and try to catch up with the culprit. As likely as not, finding the guilty party involved fairly simple logic. There were other times, when witnesses were too scared or too compromised to give evidence, or when the randomness of the crime made detection unlikely. Whichever way it went, nothing the police could do would change anything, even when the offender was caught and convicted. The deed was done, the damage, the pain and the fear had gone as deep as they were going to go, and the police job was one of clearing away the wreckage. This Angela Kennedy thing was different. What Grace and his colleagues did or didn’t do might determine whether a woman came back to her husband and kids.

Grace recognised the feelings he’d had since this thing began. Excitement, interest, passion. It had been a long time since his work aroused such emotions.

What he’d come to recognise after a couple of years at the policing game was that the crime just kept on coming, and would keep on coming, and what he or anyone else on the force did wouldn’t make a difference worth noticing. They could drive it away from one area and into another. Gangs frustrated by bank security would hijack lorryloads of computer chips. Break a protection racket and watch the gangsters start up a diesel-laundering scam. The way things were, when people didn’t get the things they wanted or needed, some of them became beaten and sour, others just took what they could, where they could. All of them, whether they lived in ghettos or mansions, had their own vision of the life they were entitled to. And the urge to acquire whatever the vision demanded – money, sex, status, or just a rush of whatever drug best pampered a fucked-up mind. And if getting what they wanted meant breaking a law or breaking a head, so be it.

There were problems out there that no amount of police would solve. And, apart from the odd radical priest or social worker on the way to an early burn-out, no one gave a shit. John Grace sometimes felt like a glorified binman, collecting the week’s rubbish and taking it out of sight. The police couldn’t stop lawbreaking, any more than binmen could stop the accumulation of waste.

No one said it out loud, but there was an acceptable level of crime, maybe even a desirable level of crime. John Grace reckoned he made a better living out of the crime business than most lawbreakers. Only a very few criminals soared to the levels of prosperity enjoyed by the lawyers, the insurance companies, the newspapers, the top people in the firms supplying the alarms and the bouncers, and all the rest of the services that thrived in the hinterland of the crime business. Even if a criminal reached the level of a Martin Cahill or a Jo-Jo Mackendrick, the chances were that he’d rub a lot of people up the wrong way and eventually pay a price.

If they got this Angela Kennedy back alive – and the chances were that they would – the case would then become the familiar hunt for evidence that would store the bad guys away for a few years, with nothing much more at stake than professional pride. In the meantime, the prospect of getting her back safe, saving a family from even worse pain, aroused in John Grace an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt since his early days out of Templemore. Afterwards, he knew, the stagnancy into which his career had drifted would seem less interesting than ever. But, for now, he felt a peculiar gratitude to Frankie Crowe for giving him this opportunity.

Poor sod
.

The victim’s husband was in rag order.

Justin Kennedy had been repetitively rubbing his face, as though the friction might distract him from his fears. Keep this up, John Grace thought, and you’ll be fuck all use to your wife when push comes to shove.

‘A cup of tea, sir, coffee?’

Kennedy shook his head. He stared at the two phones on the table in front of him, as though they’d become a special kind of enemy.

It was noon on Saturday, sixty hours after the kidnap started, before Justin Kennedy got the call. There were no preliminaries, just a terse, ‘Have you got the money yet?’

‘You were supposed to ring after forty-eight hours. Is—’

‘Have you got the money?’

When the call came it was to the house phone. Detective Inspector John Grace was in the kitchen along with one other detective, two technicians and Justin Kennedy. Superintendent Hogg had gone home at two o’clock in the morning. Grace slept in a spare room, close to Kennedy’s bedroom. Kennedy undressed and climbed into bed, for the first time since this began, and fell instantly asleep, his phones close by.

This morning he sat in the kitchen, ignoring the coffee one of the policemen put in front of him. On the counter, over beside the microwave, there were two large, heavy-duty holdalls, supplied by the bank. Half a million in each, in fifties. The presence of a million in cash in his kitchen would in any other circumstances have aroused in Justin Kennedy at least a measure of curiosity. He hadn’t bothered to open the holdalls to look at the cash. He knew from Daragh O’Suilleabhain that everything was in order. The money was of no more interest than the holdalls it was in.

He knew that when the fuckers called the chances were slim that he’d get to say more than a few words to Angela. He’d spent some time deciding what was most important, rejecting words and phrases until he had honed a single reassuring sentence.
We all love you very much, the money is on the way, this will soon be over
.

There were several phone calls that morning, all casual, family or business. Each time the phone rang, John Grace donned a pair of headphones, a technician started a tape running, Grace nodded and Justin Kennedy picked up the phone. By the time the call came from the kidnappers, just after noon, Kennedy was compulsively rubbing his cheeks, fidgeting in his seat.

‘Have you got the money yet?’

‘You were supposed to ring after forty-eight hours. Is—’

‘Have you got the money?’

‘I need to know if everything is OK with Angela.’

‘Are the cops listening in?’

Kennedy looked up towards Grace, then quickly said what had been agreed. “Yes, you said it would be OK to contact them. Is Angela all right? Can I speak to her?’

‘About the ransom.’

‘Can I speak to Angela? How do I know—’

The voice took on an edge. ‘About the ransom.’

‘I’ve got it, it took a while, but it’s ready. How do you want to do this?’

‘Two million.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Two million, fifties.’

‘You can’t—’

‘The Bryton Bank fuck-up kind of threw me, but I’ve been thinking. No need to go cut-price. Anyone can do the one can do the two.’

‘Now, wait a—’

‘Two million. Another forty-eight hours. I’ll be in touch.’

He rang off.

There was an hysterical edge to Justin Kennedy’s voice when he roared
‘Wait!’

One of the technicians was shaking his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. John Grace took off the headphones. ‘Did the voice sound familiar, sir?’

‘It sounded like, yes, it was the gang leader. How do I know he hasn’t – why didn’t he let me speak to Angela?
Two
fucking million!’

Grace was already tapping a number on his mobile. When Hogg answered, Grace said, ‘He rang, sir, and it was definitely Frankie’s voice.’