The Rage (17 page)

He crouched, took the gun from his pocket and dropped it, kicked it away down the gutter. Not a big help – but he was still wearing the latex gloves and he’d left no prints on the gun. Just might count for something, depending on the mouthpiece he got.

He pulled off the gloves, dropped them and rose, hands above his head. Give them no excuse. To his right Kevin was shouting obscenities, crouched, head weaving this way and that, as though there might be a way out if he could just find it.

‘Put your hands up,’ Noel yelled, ‘don’t give them an excuse, let them see your hands over your head.’

They’d left the Lexus on the other side of the rail line, in East Wall, in flames. They’d come round through the arch and down the lane, then turned into Kilcaragh Avenue and walked right past one of the white vans. That was the one behind them, at the end of the street – walked right past it and didn’t notice a thing. Soon as he opened the driver’s door of the VW Bora he could tell they were fucked – the shades with the guns popping out of the van up ahead.

All over
.

Something went wrong, someone grassed, but right now what mattered was staying alive.

‘Don’t shoot! We’re not armed!’ His arms stretched to full length above his head. Noel turned to Kevin Broe, his voice low now. ‘Put that fucking thing away, get your hands up, you’ll get us both killed.’

Noel wondered if somewhere not too far away Vincent was in the same fix. Whoever set them up, if they knew where one getaway car was parked they had to know where the other one was.

Jesus, stay cool, brother
.

Oh shit
—

Kevin Broe had his head lowered, not in submission, but it was like he was psyching himself up for something, his chest heaving from his deep breaths.

‘Kevin, don’t be stupid!’

On the far side of the street, a couple of houses down, an old guy was standing, having lowered a black wheelie bin down off his doorstep – frozen by the scene in front of him. Kevin came up straight and stepped out from behind the car, moving fast now, his intentions clear – if he got in through the old guy’s open front door, through the house and the backyard and into the next street—

Noel began to shout something and he was interrupted by the
crack-crack-crack
of Kevin’s gun, held out at shoulder height, pointing in the general direction of the cops at the far end of the street, firing as he ran.

The police had a limited field of fire. A careless bullet might clip a colleague at the other end of the street. So they fired just three shots at the running figure. The first hit Kevin Broe in the chest, the second in the face, the third caught Noel Naylor in the throat and he went down making gurgling noises.

Phil Heneghan was still standing behind his wheelie bin, his face pale, eyes big. He finally realised the approaching policemen were shouting at him, telling him to get the fuck away. He backed into his hallway. Across the road, that old lady – Maura the nun, he always thought of her, though she’d told his wife Jacinta her name was Maura Coady and Jacinta always called her Miss Coady. Maura the nun was a couple of feet from her open front door, her face frozen, and she stepping tentatively off the pavement and out onto the road.

Maura Coady bent down beside the body of the man in the middle of the road. There was no doubt he was dead. There was a patch of blood on his chest and one side of his face was missing.

She was aware of urgent shouting.

She straightened up. The other shot man was a few yards away, his chest falling and rising, his legs moving.

‘
Missus – get away from there!
’

She hurried over to the second man. His throat was bloody, the dark red all down his chest. He looked up at her, his mouth making noises. She knelt.

From somewhere behind her, ‘
Missus!
’

One arm cradling the wounded man’s head, her lips were close to his ear. ‘Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for all my sins—’

He groaned, his eyes moved erratically, fear leaping out of them.

‘You’ll be all right, you—’

A hand grabbed Maura’s arm and hauled her upright, pulling her away, the grip strong and hurting her. The wounded man’s eyes were blinking, his lips open.

‘Go back in your house, missus.’ The man was wearing heavy armour, the word
Garda
printed on his chest. He pushed her, she resisted. ‘That man, he needs an Act of Contrition—’

‘Go back in your house, we’ll look after him.’

At her front door he let go of her arm and she stood staring at him. ‘Please,’ she said. She raised a hand in appeal, a smear of blood across the backs of her fingers.

Behind the policeman she could see others wearing armour, pointing guns at the bodies of the two men. One of them was reaching down and picking up a handgun from beside the man who was dead. Another was talking urgently into a microphone strapped under his chin.

‘Are you OK, Miss Coady?’

Phil Heneghan was standing beside her, his old, lined face chalk white. ‘You should go inside, Miss Coady.’

She held a hand to her face, felt her flesh cold. ‘I called the police, about the car – they came.’ Her mouth was dry, her voice hoarse. ‘And—’ She gestured weakly towards the man lying on the ground a few yards away. ‘Oh God, it’s my fault, I called the police, it’s my fault—’

There was the sound of a mobile, playing a few bars of jaunty music. Nobody moved for a few moments, then the policeman stopped speaking into the microphone, leaned down and found the mobile in a pocket of the jeans of the man with the throat wound. He tapped a button, held the phone to his ear and said, ‘Yeah?’

Dumping his second getaway car, Vincent Naylor had a ten-minute walk to the MacClenaghan building on the edge of the Edwardstown estate. Job done. Stride long, arms swinging, the tension of the last few hours had been replaced by an exhilaration he could feel right out to the tips of his fingers.

Nothing left but to collect the money from the old paint factory, move it to the safe house and divvy it up later. He was approaching the MacClenaghan building, looking up towards his fourth-floor squat, when he took out his phone and rang Noel.

‘Yeah?’

‘Noel?’

Not Noel’s voice. What
—

Vincent stopped walking, stood there with the phone to his ear.

Fuck, no
.

The voice broke the silence. ‘He’s busy at the moment. I’m a Garda. To whom am I speaking?’

Vincent held the phone up over his head and threw it as hard as he could against the pavement. The phone bounced and landed several feet away. He picked it up and smashed it down again, then stamped on it over and over until bits broke off. A harsh noise escaped him as he walked away, then he turned and came back and took the SIM card from the wrecked mobile. It was a disposable, used just for the Protectica job – nothing the bastards could get out of it now. He stamped again on the broken phone and he walked until he found a drain where he dropped the SIM card in.

It took Vincent a few minutes to get to the fourth floor of the MacClenaghan. He filled a glass with water and stood on the tiny balcony, thinking it through.

If Noel was caught with the money he was fucked, plain and simple. There was no guessing how long they’d put him away for, but it would take a big chunk out of the middle of his life. And Noel, Jesus – coming back from that, that would take time.

What people didn’t understand about Noel – he was strong, but he was fragile, too. When Vincent was about twelve, their da left him alone in the house and pissed off to wherever he went that time, Kilkenny or somewhere, with a woman. Vincent wanted to find him and smash his face. Noel – who was eighteen then – said Vincent ought to stop mouthing off that way. Noel talked about how Da was shredded when their mother buggered off, his whole life just went
whoosh
, Noel said, lost everything he’d come to take for granted. Da was still a young man, looking after a ten-year-old and a four-year-old and no notion of what to do with two anxious kids. And when he fucked up over and over – with schools and food and clothes and keeping Vincent from being frightened – the bottle was a good place to get relief.

At the time of the Kilkenny thing, Noel had his own place and he took Vincent in. Then, three years later, Da came back from Kilkenny or wherever the fuck and Noel stopped Vincent from waxing him. ‘He’s our father – we’re his blood.’ He had Vincent by the shoulders, not shaking him, just staying in his face. ‘He’s all the family we have.’ And there were tears in Noel’s eyes when he said it – not shaky tears – not weak tears. Noel had character – tears that said things weren’t what they should be but they were what they were and it was OK to regret the way things had gone, but it wasn’t OK to give in to it. Noel said that even if Da was a pathetic cunt, he had the right to be treated properly when he came home.

There was more to Noel than people thought.

‘Three things matter in life. First, you do the best you can with the skills God gave you. Second, pick a goal and go for it. And, most important of all – nothing matters more than family.’

Two years after that, Noel was heartbroken when Da did a fade again. Good riddance, as far as Vincent was concerned. Of the two brothers, Noel was the better man, Vincent knew that in his heart. Noel had a code, something to measure his life against. Vincent didn’t think about things like that. It rarely bothered him, but he knew that was no way to live. ‘You need something bigger than yourself,’ Noel said, ‘or you’re all you are, and that’s not enough.’

No need to think the worst. A lot depended on when Noel and Kevin were picked up. If they were lifted with the money in the Lexus – that was the worst-case scenario. Anything else – they could say they were just doing a favour for someone, they thought they were torching the car for the insurance. Not an easy argument to win. But it was a possible runner.

Now, Vincent tried to blank his mind, but it was like trying to hold a door shut against a hurricane. Could be the cops just picked Noel up afterwards, when he was clear of the job, some uniformed shithead recognised him in the street and gave him a pull for old times’ sake.

Best thing Vincent could do for the moment was keep his cool. If Noel got clear he’d be in touch soon enough. If not, Vincent would get him an army of lawyers and they’d fight this every fucking step of the way.

It was late in the evening when Bob Tidey arrived on Kilcaragh Avenue, near the Fairview Park end of North Strand. A long section of the roadway had been cordoned off, and inside the cordon two white forensic tents had been erected. Small groups of people gathered at each end of the street, with uniforms allowing access only to residents. Tidey had to explain himself to a Garda, who insisted he speak to the officer in charge, who turned out to be a snotty detective inspector with whom he’d shared an office at Cavendish Avenue up to two years back.

‘Hi, Polly.’

Detective Inspector Martin Pollard was as frosty as ever. Many of those who had worked with Polly – Tidey being just one – insisted on using the nickname, knowing the Detective Inspector detested it. Precise and pernickety, Pollard was one of those people who, without ever doing anything downright blameworthy, somehow managed to piss people off.

‘You have business here?’

‘The old lady who lives in that fourth house down, she’s a friend. Gave me the tip on the car – that’s what got the ERU lads involved. I should speak to her.’

Pollard pursed his lips for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll expect a note on anything she may say – we’ve taken statements up and down the street, but if she has anything useful—’

Pollard handed Tidey a card.

‘Sure, no problem.’ Tidey pointed towards the white forensic tents, about twenty yards apart. ‘Both of them?’

Pollard nodded. ‘The pathologist has almost finished the preliminary. One was dead before he hit the ground, the other was gone soon after.’

‘You’ve got an ID?’

‘Small-timers. One of them started shooting. There’s no accounting for stupidity.’

Back at Castlepoint station, Tidey had spent the afternoon and evening reading the Sweetman files. He was taking a coffee break, half inclined to quit until the next morning, when he heard two uniforms talking about an ERU shooting at North Strand. After a quick call to a friend in Garda HQ, he locked away the Sweetman files and hurried to his car.

When Maura Coady opened her front door the lines in her face seemed to have deepened since last he saw her. She did the one thing he couldn’t have imagined. She circled his waist with her arms and rested her head against his shoulder. His embrace absorbed the shaking in her slender frame. After a while he eased her back into the hallway and closed the door. ‘You’re OK, Maura, it’s just the shock.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was a thin whisper.

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘The police brought someone – I think he was – he gave me something, said it would calm me.’

He sat her down in the front room and when he reached for the light switch she said, ‘No, please.’ He made tea and sat across from her. It was still a bright summer evening outside but the street was narrow and little daylight reached into the front room. She sipped the tea and for a long while neither of them spoke. Then Tidey said, ‘I’m sorry you got caught up in all this.’