Winterland (2 page)

Noel gets to the edge of the bench, and pauses. He takes a drag from his cigarette.

The young woman, meanwhile, stubs hers out. She picks up the lighter and pack of Silk Cut from the table and stuffs them into her bag. Slouched next to her, the young man is trying to look casual, unconcerned.

‘Come on,’ she says to him, ‘we’re going.’

PENSIONER VICIOUSLY ASSAULTED BY THUG
.

With the cigarette now dangling from his lips, Noel glares over at Christy. He brings his hands together, intertwines them, stretches his arms out and then cracks all of his knuckles simultaneously.

As Christy glares back, a part of him doesn’t believe this is happening. He glances down at his half-finished pint on the table, and at the pack of Sweet Afton beside it, and at the smoke rising slowly from his cigarette in the ashtray. It’s a familiar, comforting scene, almost like a still life, and he doesn’t understand how it can be about to change so radically.

But then, unexpected as this whole thing has been, something even more unexpected happens.

Just as the young couple are about to get up from their table, and as Noel is getting up from his, a figure comes rushing through the doorway of the pub and out into the middle of the beer garden. Tall and reedy, he is wearing a dark-coloured anorak and jeans, and – it takes people a second to realise it, to process what they’re seeing – he’s also wearing a balaclava.

Like with the impact of an explosion, there is a recoil from this around the garden. What follows it, though, isn’t panic. Instead, rapid calculations are made, probabilities are looked at, and soon it’s clear – at least to four of the five people out here – that all any of them can do now is hold their breath and
watch
.

The young man and woman remain frozen. The man beside Christy remains frozen, and Christy himself, stifling a cough, remains frozen.

Noel certainly isn’t resigned to watching this happen, but he remains frozen too, only his eyes darting left and right. There isn’t much else he can do in the circumstances.

The tall, reedy man, his anorak glistening in the rain, appears to hesitate. But then he turns a fraction and is suddenly face to face with Noel – four feet away from him, five at most.

Noel shifts his weight to the edge of the bench.

From where Christy is sitting, he can see the man in the anorak raising his right arm and stretching it out. The gun in the man’s gloved hand is metal grey, almost black, and looks like an extension of the glove.

Noel is trembling all over now. He feels a sudden stream of warm, beery piss making its way down his leg. He seems to have no muscular control left. All around him he hears a voice, high-pitched and whining, and he even manages to feel contempt for it – before realising it’s his own voice.

Then there is a loud crack. It is followed immediately by another one and another one after that.

Christy starts coughing. The air is damp from the rain, but it is smoky and acrid now as well.

The man in the anorak runs to a wall at the rear of the garden and jumps at it. Grabbing hold of the top, he pulls himself up and swings a leg over. In a second, he has disappeared. A few seconds after that, Christy hears a motorcycle revving up and taking off. He looks over at the others. The young woman, only half standing up, is clutching her boyfriend’s sleeve. The boyfriend is sitting down again. People have started pouring out from the main area of the pub.

Christy remains seated. He looks over at Noel, who is still at his table, but slumped forward now, his head at an awkward angle. He looks like someone who has drunk too much and passed out. From the angle Christy is at, and before his view is closed off, he is able to make out a bullet hole in Noel’s forehead. There is a small trickle of blood coming from it.

Christy looks down at his pint, and at the cigarette in the ashtray. Smoke is still rising from the cigarette. He lifts it up and takes a drag from it. In all his decades as a smoker, no cigarette has ever tasted as good.

PENSIONER’S RACING PULSE RETURNS TO NORMAL
.

He glances around. A lot of people are just standing in the rain now. They are in shock, waiting for something to happen. Most of them are talking – to each other or into mobile phones. Some have umbrellas, others are huddled into their jackets.

The man beside Christy nudges him again in the elbow.

‘Jesus,’ he says, lifting his pint, ‘it’s all go here tonight, what?’

One of the mobile calls made out of the beer garden is to a guy in Dolphin’s Barn, a ‘business associate’ of Noel’s. This business associate calls someone who lives in Stonybatter, and the person who lives in Stonybatter calls a cousin of his in Crumlin, who in turn calls someone
he
knows in Dolanstown. Within minutes, everyone in Dublin knows what’s happened. Well, not
every
one – that comes with the next news bulletin on the radio at ten or eleven o’clock – but everyone who matters.

Noel’s mother, Catherine, hears about it from her brother – who’s also called Noel. He’s in a hotel bar in the city centre with an associate of his own, Paddy Norton, the chairman of Winterland Properties. The two men are in the middle of a heated argument when Noel gets the call from Jackie, and though it’s awkward he holds a hand up, excuses himself and goes outside. He then gets on the phone to Catherine, breaks the news and tells her he’ll be out to her gaff in twenty minutes. She’s hysterical, but what can he do? He’s barely able to get his head around the news himself.

He walks to the multilevel car park down the street and takes the elemore or up to the top.

The weird thing is, although his nephew was undoubtedly a pain in the arse – unpredictable, hard to get along with, maybe even a little messed up in the head (not unlike his old man, come to think of it) – he wasn’t stupid, and by all accounts he was pretty level-headed when it came to business.

So what happened?

Noel can only guess. Most gangland killings, apparently, in the end, come down to one of three things: a turf dispute, someone creaming off the top, or a clash of personalities. All three are possible in this case, he supposes, though knowing his nephew, only the last one seems really likely.

Noel climbs into his SUV and makes his way down the five levels to the entrance as fast as he can, tyres screeching at every turn. But Dublin’s nightlife is hopping and when he pulls out onto Drury Street the traffic is practically at a standstill. He hunches over the steering wheel.

He doesn’t need this, just as he doesn’t need the band of pain that starts throbbing now behind his eyes.

The traffic moves forward, but only a yard or two. It stops again.

Rubbing his eyes, Noel thinks back to what happened in the hotel bar. He didn’t need
that
either. He didn’t need Paddy Norton jabbing him in the chest with his finger, and he certainly didn’t need another rundown of the arguments – arguments he’s been hearing incessantly now for the last two or three days. The timing of Jackie’s call didn’t help either, of course. Leaving in a hurry like that made it seem as if he were running away. It was – Noel shakes his head.

What he
does
need here, maybe, is a little perspective. Richmond Plaza, like any big development, is going to have its fair share of problems. All the ones so far have been surmountable, and this one won’t be any different.

His nephew, on the other hand, is
dead
.

As they approach George’s Street, the traffic loosens up a bit. Noel takes his mobile out again. He needs to talk to someone. He calls Jackie and asks him if he’s heard anything else.

‘No, and it’s a little strange to tell you the truth. I called around, but pretty much hit a brick wall.’

A detective superintendent based in Harcourt Street, Jackie Merrigan is a good friend of Noel’s and – important in the construction industry – a valuable source of information inside Garda headquarters. Over the last year or so, as a favour to Noel, he’s also been providing updates of a different kind.

‘So, what do you think?’ Noel asks. ‘Was it a professional hit?’

‘Oh, I’d say so, yeah.’

‘Jesus.’

‘It has all the hallmarks.’

Noel pauses, shaking his head. ‘I’m still in shock here. I mean, I was having a drink with Paddy Norton and I just walked out on the man, didn’t look back.’

‘Understandable, Noel.’

‘Yeah. Listen. Thanks. Anyway, I’m heading out to my sister’s now.’

‘Right.’ There is a pause. ‘Pass on my condolences, will you?’

‘Sure. I’ll talk to you again.’

Noel hits End. As he holds the phone in his hand, something occurs to him. He left his folder sitting on the hotel bar.

Shit.

What does he do now? Call Norton? Arrange to swing by his house later to pick it up? He’ll have to. He’s got that conference call in the morning with head office in Paris.

Shit
.

But he can’t be thinking about this now. He
can’t
. He puts the phone back into his pocket.

A couple of minutes later, he’s turning off the South Circular, then crossing the canal, and once he’s on Clogher Road, at this time of night, it’s a straight run all the way out to Dolanstown.

Alone in the house, Catherine is reeling from the news. When the phone rang, she was sipping a vodka and Coke, but now she refills the glass with just vodka and takes a long hit from it. She puts the glass down and picks up her mobile. She phones one of her sisters, Yvonne, who lives nearby, and tells her the news. After the initial shock, Yvonne is all business. She says give her fifteen minutes, that she’ll call Michelle and Gina and then come over. Catherine also calls Mrs Collins next door, who says she’ll come in and sit with her until Yvonne arrives.

The TV is still on. Catherine was watching a rerun of
Friends
, and even though she’s not watching it now, she can’t bring herself to turn it off – not until someone arrives, it’s company, and anyway holding the remote in her hand makes her feel like she’s doing something, like
she’s
in control. Through all of this – the calls, the standing around, the
Friends
– she continues crying, either in silence, with tears running down her cheeks, or at full tilt – all out and uncontrollable. At one point, she catches sight of herself in the mirror and gets a fright. Is she really that old looking? Is she really that
old
?

This all seems unreal to her, like it’s happening to someone else. Given what Noel was involved in, though, it’s not as if she hasn’t already pictured the scene a hundred times, on a hundred other nights. It’s just that the reality of it is, well … different.

When Mrs Collins arrives Catherine immediately regrets having phoned her. The woman is kind, but
too
kind, you know, she’d smother you with kindness, and now five seconds in the door she’s already hard at it. After a while Yvonne arrives and takes over, thankfully – even though the first thing she does is whip the glass of vodka away from Catherine, saying a shot or two is fine, for your nerves, but you don’t want to overdo it. The cops’ll be here soon, she says, and you’ll probably have to go somewhere to identify the body, and anyway there’ll be plenty of time for drinking later. Then she puts the kettle on – the kettle, the fucking
kettle
.

Catherine hates the kettle.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ Mrs Collins says, looking uneasily into the kitchen after Yvonne, ‘a nice cup of tea.’

The ‘nice’ really grates on Catherine’s nerves. To distract herself, she glances over at the framed photographs arranged on shelves in the corner of the lounge. She stands up and walks across the room to get a closer look at them.

She can’t believe this. She was eighteen years old when Noel was born, and just
look
at her. She was fucking gorgeous. Every bloke in the area wanted to ride her and wouldn’t leave her alone, so it was no surprise when she got pregnant – but of course it
did
have to be with a mad bastard like Jimmy Dempsey. Not that it mattered though. Once she had the baby, she didn’t care, and was even relieved when Jimmy fecked off to England. Noel was
her
baby. He wasn’t a Dempsey, he was a Rafferty – and a Noel Rafferty at that, just like her brother.

The photos are arranged in order and she gazes at each one of them in turn.

Oh God, she thinks, biting her lip – the little
fella
. Look at him there – as a baby, a boy, a teenager. That’s his life …
all
of his life now.

Starting to sob again, she turns away. Yvonne approaches her with a cup of tea. Catherine wants to say
Fuck off, would
you, I don’t want tea
, but she doesn’t, she takes it.

The doorbell rings.

Noel
.

As he comes in through the hallway, Catherine rushes out from the lounge to meet him. They stand there locked in a tight embrace for up to a minute.

Catherine has always adored her brother, even though in recent years they haven’t seen each other as much as they used to, or anyway as much as she’d like. Noel has been up to his eyes with work, spending every waking hour, it seems, locked away in meetings, off on foreign junkets or just stuck on building sites. However, there’s more to it than that, and it hits her now, what she’s known all along but hasn’t ever wanted to admit.

With her son’s growing profile, mentions in the paper and so on … had he become something of a liability as far as her brother was concerned, a potential embarrassment?

Meaning what?

Catherine doesn’t know, but in her confusion she allows the thought a little space to breathe. As she stands there in Noel’s arms, stroking the silky texture of his suit and losing herself in the haze of his cologne, she wonders if maybe, at some level, he isn’t relieved to have his young nephew permanently out of the picture.

But once the thought is formed, she flinches from it, and confusion quickly gives way to shame.