The Rage (8 page)

‘Whose idea was it? To drop in there?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘That bitch.’

‘Take it easy.’

‘She likes games, always did.’

They said nothing for a while. Then Vincent said, ‘I’ll go talk to Noel.’ Bannerman opened the back door and Vincent went out.

The garden was lit by a bright security light. Two of Bannerman’s people were standing on the patio. The garden shed was off to one side, about twenty feet from the back door. It had a small barred window on the side, the glass broken. One of Bannerman’s people nodded as Vincent passed him, approaching the shed.

‘Noel, it’s me.’

Vincent hunkered down beside the door. The wood was old, weather-beaten, the door held fast by a strong hasp and padlock.

‘Vincent—’ Noel’s voice was slurred – ‘this is none of your business.’

‘You’re my business, brother. You OK in there – you OK to come out?’

‘This is my fight, Vincent.’

‘There’s no fight, Noel.’

‘He’s a dead man. No way he’s not.’

‘You need to stop talking like that. You need to come out here. You and me, we leave here together – Liam Delaney’s down the road, he’s got a car, we go home, we talk it out.’

There was a long silence, then Noel said, ‘Just let them get on with it, you mean?’

‘Coming here with a knife, brother – that’s not the brightest thing you’ve done all day.’

More silence. Vincent Naylor moved closer, until his cheek was touching the rough wood of the shed. He put his lips close to the door and when he spoke his voice was too soft for anyone but Noel to hear. ‘Don’t let’s screw things up now, brother – we’ve things to do.’

Silence.

‘You hear me? You’ve put too much work into this job to throw it away over something like this.’

He waited, and when there was no reply he said, ‘We talk this out, you and me – and if you can’t live with that, then I stand back and you do what you’ve got to do.’

This time the silence went on for a couple of minutes.

‘Noel?’

‘Give me a minute.’

Vincent stood up and walked over to Bannerman’s men. ‘Tell Albert to keep that bitch upstairs – and it’s best if he stays up there, too.’ The taller one nodded to the other, and the second man went into the house.

Behind Vincent, there was a double knock from inside the shed. Noel’s voice sounded like nothing unusual had happened. ‘OK, Vincent, let me out of here.’

Bannerman’s man took his hand out of his pocket and gave Vincent a key.

The judge said there were things he’d like to say about both parties in this case. ‘However, charity suggests I adopt the course recommended by my sainted grandmother – and hold my breath to cool my porridge.’ He paused a moment, just long enough to allow the two barristers to emit token sycophantic chuckles.

On arriving at the court, Bob Tidey got the word from prosecuting barrister Mopey Dick. ‘The DPP’s doing a nolly.’

‘It figures.’

The case had formally resumed, just long enough for Mopey Dick to rise and inform the judge that the Director of Public Prosecution had reviewed the case overnight. ‘And he has, Judge, decided to take a certain course.’

The phone lines would have been burning, as the police and the lawyers for the two idiots negotiated a way out. The charges of assault were withdrawn – the lawyers for the two idiots would have told them that although the odds were now against a conviction, anything can go wrong in a criminal case and they ought to cut their losses. Nothing would be said in open court, but the lawyers would have privately agreed that the DPP’s
nolle prosequi
would be matched by the yobs’ parents dropping the civil suit.

‘I find it impossible to terminate these proceedings without a word about the police evidence.’ The judge favoured a languid delivery. ‘Of the two policemen who arrested the accused – perhaps it’s best to draw a veil, though I trust their superior officers will discuss the matter with them.’

He looked down at Bob Tidey, sitting in the well of the court.

‘Detective Sergeant Tidey, your evidence neither condemned nor exonerated the accused, yet it was clearly – how should I put this? – it was clearly lacking in frankness. Put simply – it flew in the face of the visual evidence we saw with our own eyes.’

Knowing he would probably appear in future cases before the same judge, Tidey kept his face expressionless. In the judge’s world, all the lines between right and wrong are clear, all the choices are made on the basis of legal scripture.

‘I can easily imagine circumstances in which I might feel moved to take this matter further. In the event, a public reprimand seems sufficient penance. Count your blessings, Detective Sergeant Tidey.’

When his phone rang, Assistant Commissioner Colin O’Keefe ignored the dagger glances from across the table. He took his time checking and saw the call was from Detective Chief Superintendent Malachy Hogg.

‘Yeah?’

O’Keefe was seated towards the bottom of a long, highly polished table, on the second floor of the Department of Justice. Of the seven others at the table, two were from his staff, there to take notes and provide backup. Three were senior departmental place-fillers and one was a harmless old relic working out the last months to his pension. The only one that mattered was the department’s Director General of Strategic Provision, Robertson Wynn.

‘You got my email?’ Hogg asked.

‘I’m in a meeting – Mr Wynn has some suggestions.’

Every two weeks, O’Keefe found himself in this room, reporting on and demanding approval of the detailed consequences of the budget cuts the Department of Justice required. It was a process he insisted on, and he preferred to drag it out, on the theory that if he made it insufferable for the buggers they might shift some cuts elsewhere next year.

Hogg said, ‘The email’s got the Ballistics report on the Sweetman murder. It changes things.’

‘Ring you back shortly.’

O’Keefe found the email on his HTC, opened it and opened the two-page attachment. As expected, the handgun round that went through Sweetman’s head and flattened against the marble floor was beyond matching. The other bullet had entered Sweetman’s cheek and was found nestled inside his neck. There were some rifling marks on the bullet, but it hit a bone somewhere on its travels, the slug was distorted, killing any chance of a match. Ballistics got nothing useful from the shotgun pellets – nothing a blind man couldn’t see from glancing at the body.

It took O’Keefe a moment to see the significance of the two-sentence paragraph second from the end. Markings on the two shells recovered at the scene had been linked to one previous known killing.

Oliver Snead.

He scanned the single sentence that summarised the bare details of the Snead murder. He vaguely recognised the name and he spent a moment mentally trawling the countless cases he’d absorbed over the years, retrieving a small cluster of facts he’d retained about the Snead murder.

‘Assistant Commissioner . . .’

O’Keefe looked towards Robertson Wynn, then ignored him.

The Snead murder was eighteen months back, or thereabouts. Two gunmen – Snead was with friends, a winter drinking party on waste ground in front of the block of flats where he lived with his grandfather. The Hive. He owed someone money, a drugs thing.

As memory filled out the details, O’Keefe paused for just a moment, then he opened the contacts list in his mobile and scrolled down through the names.

Outside the court, Sergeant Derek Ferry offered Bob Tidey a cigarette. ‘Sorry you got dragged into this petty shit.’

Tidey lit Ferry’s cigarette. ‘Things happen.’ He thumbed the lighter again and there was just a bare flicker of flame. He sucked it into his own cigarette.

He found a shop and bought a packet of Rothmans and two disposable lighters. Leaving the shop, his mobile rang. The screen said Colin O’Keefe
.

Jesus, that was quick
.

In the years since he partnered O’Keefe on a couple of high-profile cases, the two had kept in touch. The friendship remained, but now that O’Keefe had reached the heights of Assistant Commissioner the contact was only occasional. Either Colin wanted to sympathise about the judge’s reprimand, or he wanted to know if Tidey had been fucking about.

‘Bob – it’s Colin. You got much on your plate?’

Tidey took a moment to think. ‘Some court work, paperwork, and a few witness depositions scheduled to start tomorrow—’

‘Take a day to wrap it all up – two at the most. I can get you help with the witnesses.’

‘It’ll take longer than—’

‘Malachy Hogg’s running the inquiry from Castlepoint – touch base with him, do your best to sideline the other stuff and get stuck in.’

‘What’s this—’

‘Oliver Snead.’

Tidey said nothing for a moment. Then he said, ‘Go on.’

‘We’ve connected that case to a recent shooting.’

‘Good.’

‘This other shooting – it’s way beyond Oliver Snead’s league. Something doesn’t make sense.’

There was silence for a moment, then Bob Tidey said, ‘Go ahead, surprise me.’

Michelle Flood had just forty minutes for lunch, so Vincent Naylor met her in the Abbey Street food hall, five minutes’ walk from the hairdresser’s where she worked. Over sandwiches he told her why he’d had to leave during the night, all about Noel and the shed and the bitch who used to live with him.

Michelle smiled. ‘Lorraine – Paris Hilton without the inheritance. I know her sister.’

Long dark hair, big blue eyes and a smile that would melt granite. Even wearing the dark blue top and grey trousers that came with her part-time hairdressing job, Michelle looked like something from a magazine.

This thing between them went deep very quickly. At first Vincent worried about how and when – and if – he should let her know this was serious for him. Then it dawned that he knew it was serious for her, and she hadn’t said a word.

‘The bitch lived with Noel for over a year,’ Vincent said. ‘Cracked about her, he was. Total basket case when she dumped him.’

‘She’s a cow. An over-the-hill cow. Everyone knows that. How is he now?’

Vincent just said, ‘Fine, he’s OK,’ but he still wasn’t sure how last night’s trouble would work out.

It had been pushing five in the morning when Liam Delaney dropped them off at Noel’s house. Noel was drained.

‘I’ll get you a coffee.’

Noel shook his head, shuffled towards his bedroom. Vincent helped him take off his jacket, shoes and jeans, then Noel curled up. Vincent stared at the bruise on Noel’s right cheek.

‘What happened your face?’

Noel shook his head again.

‘We’ll talk tomorrow?’

Noel didn’t open his eyes, just nodded. Vincent spent what was left of the night on Noel’s couch.

At thirty-two, Noel was six years older than Vincent, with two stretches in the Joy while Vincent was still at school. From the off, Noel was able to do anything with a car. Open it up with a coat hanger, jump the leads, race it, slide it, spin it 180 with a touch of the handbrake, sideswipe it off lamp posts and parked cars if that’s what he felt like doing. Back then, Noel’s idea of a pleasant evening was to steal something fast and noisily drive around the estate until some busybody called the cops. When the bluebottles showed up, blue lights spinning, Noel waited, revving the engine until the cops thought they had him. Then, when they were close enough to see his smile, he’d give them the finger and floor the metal and the chase was on.

They never caught him behind a wheel. Instead, they collared him one night coming out of the rear exit of a chemist shop, his pockets full of cheap highs. That’s when they beat the shite out of him. At first, he gave as good as he got, which was a mistake. He was on a drip in the Mater for ten days before he woke up to face charges of burglary, assaulting two policemen and resisting arrest.

These days, Noel had a bit too much flesh on him, too much grey in his hair and too little bounce in his stride. The lines around his eyes looked like the work of decades.

When Vincent heard Noel stirring this morning he started cracking eggs. By the time his brother was up Vincent had a couple of mushroom omelettes ready. As they sat down across the kitchen table from each other Noel said, ‘I know.’

Vincent paused, fork halfway to his mouth.

‘You know what?’

‘I was a prick last night. No need for a pep talk.’

‘As long as you’re all right now.’

‘It was just – I was at Cisco’s, they walk in and the minute it happened I could see what was going on. The bitch was making some sort of point. No other reason to bring Bannerman there. Not his kind of place. And after they’d gone – Jesus, them waltzing off – that bitch, throwing me away like I was something she wiped her arse with.’

‘Noel—’

‘It was drink, it was daft, I know that. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do. Could have screwed up everything. He’s a cunt, Bannerman is, and she’s worse.’