The Rage (29 page)

At the end of the journey, standing on the bridge, he knew of no reason to go this way rather than that. It was as if all points of reference had been removed. He crossed the bridge and walked up past College Green and found a Starbucks.

This could be sorted out. The suspension didn’t have to lead to anything drastic. He was a good detective, valuable to the force, and he wouldn’t be shafted as long as he got back into line. It was the sensible thing to do. The notion of forcing the issue, watching his career flame out for the sake of the Sweetman case was too foolish to consider. Outside the force, for the rest of his life, he’d be as adrift as he felt when he got out of the taxi – all points of reference gone.

When his mobile rang he didn’t recognise the number that showed.

‘Yeah?’

‘Martin Pollard.’

‘Polly, how’s it going?’

‘There’s something you should know.’

‘Yeah? What about?’

‘Not on the phone.’

Tidey said, ‘You’re in luck – suddenly, I find myself with a lot of time on my hands.’

Michelle Flood said, ‘I miss you,’ and Vincent Naylor said, ‘I miss you too.’ He was lying on the bed in his room at the Four Seasons. ‘Won’t be long, now.’

‘I can’t help it.’ Her voice was faint. He held the phone closer to his ear. ‘Every hour you stay in Dublin, I’m thinking is this the hour they take you?’

‘There’s a delay, I can’t leave yet. The passport’s taking longer than I thought.’

‘How much longer?’

‘You know how these things work. People say they’ll have something done – then there’s a delay.’

She told him about the apartment, the area. As she spoke, Vincent reached down towards the bottom of the bed and tucked the top of the passport back into the envelope – he knew it was silly, but he didn’t want it staring at him while he spoke to Michelle.

‘It doesn’t have to be permanent,’ she said, ‘we can move on, it depends – but it’s a lovely neighbourhood and I think you’ll like it.’ He said he was sure he would.

Bob Tidey was sipping his coffee, in Gaffney’s pub in Fairview, when Detective Inspector Martin Pollard arrived. Pollard ordered a vodka and tonic. Balding since his twenties, his hair had now receded over the horizon of his polished head. As ever, he didn’t waste time on chit-chat. ‘This is all on the quiet, we never talked, right?’

Tidey nodded.

‘Someone tried to kill an ERU sergeant, at his home. Several shots through the window of his bedroom – he got away with a few cuts from flying glass.’

‘Someone’s asking for trouble.’

‘Technical fast-tracked the forensics. The same gun has been used to kill a hood named Albert Bannerman – and his girlfriend. And a man named Shay Harrison, who worked for Protectica.’

‘Someone’s gone berserk.’

‘We’re trying to keep a lid on the fact that the incidents are connected. We think it was a hood called Vincent Naylor. He’s the brother of one of the men shot dead on Kilcaragh Avenue – he hasn’t been seen since the Protectica job.’

Tidey shook his head. ‘Never heard of him.’

‘He used to work for Mickey Kavanagh, did at least one killing for him. He just finished a stretch in the Joy for assault. A couple of years back I spent several weeks trying to tie him into a kneecapping. I know he did it, but the victim was too scared to make a statement.’

‘Some fruitcake – three dead and he’s shooting at an ERU sergeant?’

Pollard poured a small amount of mixer into his vodka and lowered half of the drink. ‘He tried to kill the leader of the ERU team, he’s killed a Protectica employee, who may have been the inside man. Which is why I wanted to let you know. That friend of yours, the woman who tipped us off about the car—’

‘Maura Coady.’

‘We don’t know how many people he’s mad at, but her name was in the papers – the hero nun who gave police the tip-off.’

‘Ah, Jesus. She’s in her seventies – she said a prayer over one of the guys when he was dying.’

‘If Vincent Naylor’s read the papers—’ Pollard shrugged.

‘She’s going to get protection, right?’

Pollard looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s where it gets complicated. We’ve got a list of people we’ve been told have priority. Assuming this Shay Harrison was the inside man, there may be other Protectica people in danger. Other ERU members – any Garda who might have pissed off Vincent Naylor in the past.’

‘Maura Coady – without her, there wouldn’t have been an ERU operation.’

‘It’s not that anyone’s excluding her, it’s just that they had to draw the line somewhere and she happened to be on the other side of it.’

‘Budgets, right?’

‘I’ve had a chat with my Super, and he’s approved an unmarked car, parked close to her house, for a day or two. The reason I contacted you – maybe you can do something more.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’m told you’re an old buddy of Assistant Commissioner O’Keefe – maybe you can put a word in, get her shifted up the list? I’m told O’Keefe is a reasonable man.’ Martin Pollard finished what was left of his vodka.

Tidey stood and hesitated a moment, then he said, ‘I better head.’

Pollard said, ‘Yes, keep in touch.’ As Tidey left, Pollard took his glass to the bar.

Walking towards the city centre, Bob Tidey called a friend at Garda headquarters and found out where Colin O’Keefe was scheduled to be this evening. Given Tidey’s suspension, approaching O’Keefe would be tricky, but manageable. The Sweetman case made things awkward, but that could be finessed. Bow the knee, throw in a bit of the old mea culpa. Keep the focus on getting protection for Maura Coady.

Tidey rang Harry Synnott at Clontarf station and asked for another favour. Then he hailed a taxi. When he got home to his flat in Glasnevin a lengthy fax from Synnott had arrived. Tidey made a coffee and sat at the kitchen table, reading excerpts from Vincent Naylor’s file. There was a lot of background stuff on Naylor and on the people he’d worked with and for. There were two pages on the killing he did for Mickey Kavanagh, and three pages of background on Mickey and his operations.

Tidey sipped his coffee, his gaze fixed on a mugshot of Vincent Naylor. In pictures taken by their captors, criminals sometimes look subdued, sometimes angry or defiant. Naylor faced the camera with the air of a footballer who’s just learned he’s been voted Man of the Match.

The President, her voice laden with emotion, said that the republic – in this, its hour of need – was calling on its daughters and sons, at home and abroad, to rally to its cause. ‘And we make this call, knowing that our people’s love for their country is matched only by their spirit, by their creativity, by their ingenuity and by their energy.’

The President spoke from a platform in the courtyard of Dublin Castle. Behind her, seated in three tiers, representatives of the state and of civic society had come to demonstrate their support for the project being launched this evening. Among them were the Garda Commissioner and two of his Assistant Commissioners, including Colin O’Keefe.

‘Almost four score and ten years ago, within the precincts of this very Castle, in a solemn two-hour ceremony, the soon-to-be-martyred Michael Collins accepted the transfer of government from Viscount FitzAlan, the British Lord Lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, the flag of another country was solemnly lowered, and with equal solemnity the flag of the reborn nation was raised aloft. Many times in the decades since then, this country has known tough times. Yet the challenges we face today are as great as the gravest test endured by our forebears.’

The President’s audience of several hundred was standing on cobblestones in the centre of the courtyard, hemmed in by barriers. Bob Tidey was standing at the back of the crowd. He noted the beefed-up security that had become standard at official events, to discourage public expressions of anger against executive incompetence and corruption. There were, however, no politicians on the platform, apart from the presidential figurehead. Nothing would kill off potential support as quickly as the presence of a nervously grinning government minister.

The new project invited citizens to go online at a tastefully designed website and reveal their entrepreneurial ideas on how to get the country out of the massive hole of debt into which the bankers had driven it. It seemed to be a kind of national suggestion box, with prizes for the best submissions. Tidey pitied the poor sods who had to sort through the crank proposals and the inevitable tide of obscenities.

Three speakers followed the President, each more emotional and flowery than the speaker before. Finally, with a ringing call from the Master of Ceremonies, an RTÉ celebrity, the event ended. Bob Tidey showed his ID and was allowed through the barrier. Colin O’Keefe saw him coming and held up a palm – he smiled and silently mouthed, ‘Five.’ Tidey lit a cigarette and waited twenty minutes while O’Keefe mingled. The President went indoors after a while, accompanied by her retinue. The crowd’s smiles, handshakes and enthusiastically nodding heads suggested that the launch was considered a great success. The sound of excited chatter covered the courtyard like a fluffy blanket.

Eventually, as the crowd began to dwindle, O’Keefe beckoned and Tidey followed him to a corner of the courtyard.

‘I’m due inside for dinner, Bob – and, like I said, this is inappropriate, given your suspension.’

‘It’ll take a minute.’

‘I can’t speak to you about the suspension, or about the Sweetman case.’

‘It’s not that.’

O’Keefe leaned closer, his voice lowered, although there was no one within several yards. ‘A word to the wise, Bob – these disciplinary things, they’re a ritual dance. Once you understand the choreography, there’s no need for it to come to anything.’

Tidey said, ‘I follow orders – so, it’s over, the Sweetman case. Believe me, I’d no intention of challenging anyone’s authority. But there’s something I need, there’s a problem that—’

‘You trying to do a deal with me?’ O’Keefe seemed offended. ‘There’s something you need? And in return you’ll accept the decision of senior officers on the Sweetman case?’

‘Nothing like that. This Vincent Naylor thing – the guy who’s on a rampage—’

O’Keefe shook his head. ‘We need the lid kept on that – you shouldn’t even—’

‘There’s a woman, a witness – without her there’d have been no ERU on Kilcaragh Avenue that day. With this Naylor thug on the warpath, she needs protection.’

‘Send me the details. I’ll look into it.’

‘Colin – she’s vulnerable, she needs cover now.’

‘Jesus, Bob – what is this? Have you borrowed Bob Geldof’s halo? The Naylor problem, it’s not your case, it’s none of your business – but you’d like someone fast-tracked onto a security list.’ O’Keefe’s voice was rising. ‘Four shootings in a couple of days, the work of one lunatic. Have you any
idea
of the pressure – the panic, Jesus – keeping the lid on – there are
dozens
of people – including members of the force – people who might or might not be in this nutcase’s sights. Scarce resources have to be—’

‘There’s a real danger to a civilian—’

‘That’s the judgement of an officer – let’s be blunt, Bob – an officer who’s recently been reprimanded by a judge in open court and suspended due to a breach of discipline.’

‘Colin—’

‘I’m expected at dinner.’ O’Keefe began moving away.

‘Fuck this, Colin – this woman is entitled—’

O’Keefe stopped. ‘You’re speaking out of turn – again.’

‘It keeps coming back to Sweetman, right? You’re pissed off with what you have to do, but you’ll do it anyway. You know it’s wrong – and you know I know it’s wrong. And that pisses you off.’

‘The Sweetman case is solved.’

‘Not solved, closed down.’

Some yards away, one of O’Keefe’s minders was staring, poised to intervene. O’Keefe waved him away and stepped closer to Tidey. ‘Let me explain something, Bob. You’re not Sherlock Holmes, you’re not Sam Spade. You don’t have a mandate to go down mean streets looking for mysteries to solve. And you’re not Batman – you’re not here to clean up Gotham City.’

‘I know my job.’

‘You’re a public servant. You’re handed a file and told to ask questions of anyone who might have answers. Then you hand the file back and you move on. Then other people decide what happens to the file.’

For a moment, Tidey considered whether it was worth the waste of his breath. Then, keeping his voice under control, he said, ‘We didn’t finish asking questions. The Sweetman case – for whatever reason, it’s being shut down before all lines of inquiry have been exhausted.’

‘Your job is to gather the raw material, to pass it up the line. It’s for others to decide where it fits into the bigger picture.’

‘Whatever happened to following the evidence, wherever it leads?’

‘Grow up, Bob. We’ve got an explanation of the Sweetman case, entirely plausible – but we’re supposed to keep the inquiry going endlessly, exploring every crackpot theory until we find an explanation that rings your bell?’

‘Blame it on the dead guy. That’s a sacred Irish tradition.’

‘If we didn’t have a perfectly feasible explanation of the crime I’d be happy to continue our inquiries – but what’s your alternative explanation?’