The Murk Beneath_A Cork Crime Novel Read online

  As a Guard I had become friends, in the loosest sense of the word, with a retired bagman by the name of Moggy Mac. Mogs had collected loan repayments around Cork's Northside, the interest rates often dwarfing the amounts owed. I would slip him a ten or a twenty for tidbits of information – who'd been seen around that shouldn't have been around, who was beating whose wife, and so on. Enough to keep the Bosco almanac up-to-date.

  When I was a Guard I drank only with my own mob – the blue mob. I found friends hard to come by once I had been kicked out. If for no other reason than familiarity or continuity, I remained on good terms with Mogs.

  I noticed that Mogs was sitting there pint-less. He looked about the same as he always did: hair slicked back to cover his bald patch, skin drooping from his cheekbones like melting wax, rotting teeth amongst white ones that looked like tombstones on a full-moon night. He wore a cheap checked sports coat that made him look like a news reporter from the seventies.

  I wore unassuming clothes. I wanted to blend in. A simple pair of blue jeans, striped grey shirt and black shoes. I think I lacked the confidence to wear anything remotely snazzy.

  “I'll get them in so, will I?” I said.

  I wondered how long Mogs had been sitting there waiting for the Bosco tab to walk in. It was all very well him taking other people's money, but he was very slow to part with his own.

  I jostled my way to the bar, knocking elbows with a dome-headed guy who had a thirty-two-county tattoo on his crown. This tilted the man's pint of Murphy's sending the frothy head slopping onto the floor. The bald guy looked at me with his fist at the ready, but then he must have recognized me as the ex-cop who'd put Chambers in a coma. He relaxed, giving up his position at the bar.

  I ordered a Bud and a Howling Gale Ale. I like stuff that has been brewed or distilled locally. I'm not a lover of stout – Beamish and Murphy's are out – so I opt for a Howling Gale when it's on tap and I'm in company. Whiskey is something I drink alone. Whiskey is for thinking – and remembering things. Like Dad.

  I sat opposite Mogs at a table that would barely have qualified as a stool in most respectable pubs. I shook his hand. It was like rattling the bones of a skeleton.

  “Who's Humpty Dumpty?” I said.

  Mogs looked blankly at me.

  “The guy with the tat on his head,” I clarified.

  “Oh him? That's Geoff Cooney. Scoobs we call him. He's harmless. Male nurse in Holy Cross hospital.”

  “Well, he's hardly a female nurse now is he? He'd put the frighteners on you if he came in to give you a sponge bath. Anyway, how are ya?”

  “Ah you know, scratching my balls along the road as usual. You?”

  “Same old, same old.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  I played around with a sopping wet beer mat, tore at the edges of it. I smiled blithely.

  “Yeah. That bad.”

  Mogs opened his mouth like a pelican and took an enormous gulp of beer. He wiped the back of his hand across his beak and dried it on his jumper.

  “Well, maybe this'll perk you up, boy,” he said. “You remember Johnny Fitzmaurice – Johnny Moolah?”

  “Vaguely. Wasn't he like a wacker or something?”

  “He was in your day. Anyway, he graduated from cornerboy to fully-fledged dealer. Rumour has it he took a shipment of heavy stuff off a yacht near Nohoval Cove.”

  “That's all very interesting, Mogs, but I'm not in the cop game anymore.”

  That might have been true, and they may have sent me packing, but they couldn't take the cop out of me. That's something that splices with your DNA, changes you forever, turns your blood blue.

  “Listen, Mickey, the guy got wacked a couple of days ago. You must have read it in the papers, like.”

  “I stopped reading papers a long time ago.”

  I had not picked up a newspaper since I'd seen myself writ large in The Examiner that time I put Chambers in the hospital. To say I had fallen out of touch with recent goings on would have been an understatement. I only had my own world, kept to myself.

  “Ah right. Anyway, guess who put the green light on Moolah?”

  “Get to the fecking point, Mogs.”

  I supped my pint.

  “Jordan.”

  That caught my attention. I swallowed some beer and a gas bubble caught painfully in my chest.

  “The Gentleman,” I croaked.

  Pain radiated around my upper chest and across my shoulders. It joined up with the ache on my head. It was a crucifix of suffering.

  “None fucking other, boy.”

  I buried my hands into my hair and felt the scar. I picked at it, pulled at the stitching, opening it up just a bit. I felt something seep from the wound. I suddenly lost my appetite for drink. I needed to take stock for a moment, weigh up what this could mean.

  “I'll be back in a minute, Mogs. Gotta drain the old weasel.”

  Mogs smirked. “As long as that's all you do with it, boy.”

  The lavatory stank to high heaven. The only stall was free and I went in and closed the door. There was a seat on the toilet, which was somewhat of a surprise given the condition of the rest of the lavatory, but no lid to sit on. I took a leak, then stood and thought for a moment.

  The word on the street, something Mogs was very close to, was that The Gentleman had ordered a hit. What I also knew was that I was on Jordan's radar now. For a while I'd been flying low, below that radar, minding my own business. Now my altitude had risen and I'd hit unexpected turbulence. I was already recovering from one plane crash – I didn't need another.

  I flushed the toilet. I desperately hoped I wasn't flushing my life away with my piss. Maybe it was already too late to worry about that. There was no soap in the dispenser and I knew from experience that the hand dryer was busted, so I gave my hands a quick rinse and wiped them on the back of my jeans.

  Back at the table, I noticed that Mogs had already reached the end of his glass. Without asking, I ordered another pint for him. I still had most of the Howling Gale left and it was as much as I could stomach.

  “They really should do something with that jacks,” I said. “Just because no one else bothers to wash their hands doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to.”

  “Fuck sake, boy, who ever died from not washing their hands? I'm still here.”

  Barely. He was gaunt with all the appearance of an Egyptian mummy. His skin was like old saddle leather and I remembered that he used to rub a lethal mixture of olive oil and vinegar into his skin to promote tanning. That was before they cut three cancerous moles from his skin and told him to apply a liberal daub of factor fifty any time the sun shone.

  “C'mere to me, Mogs. Who's been talking about Jordan and the Moolah in the same breath?”

  Mogs grinned. “Just rumours, boy. Tittle-tattle.”

  I really wasn't in the mood for much idle chat after hearing what Mogs told me. We changed the subject to Premier League football for a bit, then watched the Six-One news on the nearest telly – another minister had resigned citing “health reasons”. I got restless after that and looked at my watch.

  “I'm sorry, Mogs. I've got to go.”

  “Ah hang on. I was going to get a round in.”

  “You were in your fuck.”

  I left nearly half a pint of the Howling Gale behind.

  I decided to walk the mile or so to my house in Blackpool. The cloud cover was threateningly dark and it was getting cold, so I zipped up my anorak. Saint Anne's Steeple loomed in the blue-grey murk as I walked down the hill. The limestone and sandstone building made a big statement among the small dwellings that surrounded it, but dubbed The Four-face Liar because of the inability of each of its four clocks to keep in sync, it also reminded me that I could trust no one, that there was never one reliable version of the truth.

  Live music blared from an open apartment window. A jam session with tin whistle, piano, and guitar. I did a little jig and banged my left heel against my right ankle making me wince with p
ain. Someone shouted, “Up ya boy ya!”

  I called an old acquaintance from the force, Barry Cotter. The last time we’d worked together was the Robbie O’Meara disappearance. Barry had been a partner of mine when we were in uniform some years before that. I had been five years his senior, had shown him the ropes. We mostly just walked the beat around Bishopstown, then later Togher. I trusted Barry more than anyone I worked with since.

  “Jesus, Bosco. I heard about Churchfield. How are you doing? I've … I've been meaning to call.”

  Sure you were. I knew I was persona non grata in police circles.

  “I'm grand. Just a couple of bumps and bruises. You?”

  “The usual shite. Drugs, guns, murders.”

  “Oh yeah. I remember.” I actually missed them. “Listen, Barry, I was talking to an old friend of mine from the street. Said something about some guy called Moolah coming to an untimely end. You hear anything about that?”

  “From the street?” I could hear Barry chuckling. “It's my business to hear. I'm assigned to the Fitzmaurice case. Why, what you hear?”

  “Oh, you know … just that Jordan might have been up to his old tricks.”

  Having risen to the position of Cork's organized crime kingpin by the mid-eighties, Jordan was suspected in a number of hits on up-and-coming dealers. As well as being called The Gentleman, a moniker that was a hangover from his boxing days, he was sometimes called The Nipper, because he would eradicate potential competitors before they could lay down a serious foothold – nip them in the bud, so to speak.

  “You know I can't talk about it, Mickey. Not even for an old friend like yourself. Anyway, who told you this?”

  “Sorry, Barry. Can't say. You know, not even for an old friend.”

  There was that familiar chuckle again. We'd shared plenty of jokes, many of them x-rated, on our foot patrols. The laughter kept us just that little bit warmer on cold nights. Can't beat a blue joke when you're going blue from the cold in a blue uniform, is what we used to say.

  “Ah fuck it. Look, what if I said that we weren't looking for anyone for the hit?”

  “I'd say you weren't looking because you'd already found who you were looking for.”

  Barry just grunted something into the phone that sounded like it might have been an affirmative.

  “There's something I have been meaning to ask you, though,” Barry said as I passed by the North Cathedral where my first holy communion and confirmation ceremonies had taken place. “Jordan owns that place up in Churchfield where those guys hopped you. How'd you get the job?”

  “I dunno. I just got assigned by the security company.”

  “How many guys work for them?”

  “The security company? About twenty-five I'd say.”

  “Bit of a coincidence, don't you think? That of all of them, you get assigned to Churchfield.”

  I pretended like it hadn't already crossed my mind. This just made it front and centre, though. Something I'd need to confront. I couldn't discount the conspiracy theories on how I ended up minding stuff in Jordan’s warehouse.

  “Hmm. Maybe. When you put it like that.”

  “Well, just watch your back, Mickey.”

  I decided to fish for something on Halloran.

  “You hear of a DI called Dick Halloran? He was round yesterday asking questions. Questioning my involvement, to be more precise.”

  “Dick Halloran. It's funny you should bring him up. He's been seconded to the Bridewell for the foreseeable. Says he's working the Churchfield case, seems to think it may link to something bigger.”

  “It wouldn't be the first time some langer from the Bureau had a hidden agenda.”

  “Anyway, I don't see why he would be too interested in you. Just stick to your guns and he'll not be on your back for too long.”

  “I hope you're right, Barry. I can do without his shite.”

  Rain began to pelt down suddenly, landing in the puddles like mortar fire. I pulled up the hood of my anorak. I said my goodbyes to Barry and searched my pockets for my pack of Bensons. I found it. Smoke filled my hood as I lit up. All of two minutes later and I was home. I flicked the fag butt into a puddle and there was a brief sizzle.

  “That's it,” I said out loud. “The last one.”

  I don't know why I quit right then. Maybe I had grown tired of seeing everything through a cloud, either psychological or the one I was blowing out in front of me. I took the pack from my pocket and emptied the remaining three cigarettes into the puddle. I didn't trust myself to just bin them. I'd probably scavenge them out from amongst the rotting vegetables and spent tea bags and smoke them whatever condition they were in – God knows, I had in the past. At least you couldn't light a wet fag – and I'd tried that too.

  I went inside to spend a smoke-free night with a good book and some relaxing music. But I knew I'd be climbing the walls before too long, craving just one last drag, one final hit of nicotine.

  The next morning I was tired and my body clock was still adjusting to normal waking hours. I scanned the ever-shrinking jobs page of The Examiner. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. I felt maybe I'd know the job when I saw it, but nothing stood out. For the time being I was drawing down my savings to pay the bills and such. I don't believe in the dole – not unless I’m totally on my uppers. I don't like people poking into my affairs. How much savings do you have? How much is your house worth? Any dependants? I'd know soon enough if I needed to get off my arse and settle for another security job.

  I was on the porridge now. I decided I would only partake of the Clonakilty and such at my mother's, just to appease her. She thought I was too thin, needed bulking up. That's mothers for you.

  My mother, Adele, is devoutly Catholic. I was baptized, even served as an altar boy, but by the age of ten I found priests creepy. There was one particular priest who would put cold, wandering hands up your shirt and rub your bare chest. Thankfully, for my sake, I wasn't one of the priest's favourites. That would have been Declan. Mrs Bosco didn't want to hear about that, though. She wouldn't hear a bad word said against Father Bartholomew. He'd married my parents and baptized me Michael Jeremiah Bosco. I hadn't been to church in years, but would lie to my mother about going – about receiving communion, about confessing my sins. I had plenty of those to confess, but I was damned if it was a priest I would confess to.

  There was one other memory of Father Bartholomew, however. He presided over my father's funeral mass. It was funny the things I was beginning to remember as my father's anniversary approached. And there was something different about this anniversary, something unresolved. It was inside my head now, scratching away, picking at fragments deeply buried, like the way I would occasionally pick at my head wound.

  It wasn't that the memories were particularly different than before – they were the same every year. But I'd flooded those with drink. I'd smothered them before they could manifest into anything approaching true feelings. They had been pictures on someone else's wall, like holiday snaps. Not like now. Now they played in my head in full HD. Like I was feeling them for the first time again. The smells, the sounds. The tears tickling my cheeks.

  The old anger I felt was coming back strong too. I didn't just feel angry at life, or at God, or anything non-specific. I felt angry with Dad. He'd somehow let me down, died meaninglessly, not been there at key moments in my life, like the Chambers incident. I could have handled him dying of ill health or by accident – eventually, anyway. But he'd put himself in harm's way for his job. For his job, for fuck sake! What about his family? I would immediately feel guilty for damning a dead man.

  My father, seen by some as the archetypal sleazy newspaperman and by others as a crusading investigator, had shifted along the razor's edge of official society and the murk beneath and been cut down. He had quite a name back in the early eighties, a time of immense political instability and corruption. He became synonymous with the exposure of some of the biggest local scandals of the era.

 
Biggest of all was the time some Gardaí held onto the ransom money they were supposed to have paid to IRA kidnappers and instead went on a disastrous armed assault that yielded one dead hostage, one dead kidnapper, and three seriously-injured plain clothes detectives.

  My father painstakingly documented the subsequent surge in lifestyles of those Special Branch detectives and interviewed a high-ranking member of the IRA's Southern Command who disputed the ransom payment. Unsurprisingly, I suppose, not one detective got suspended, let alone lost their job. Who was going to believe the words of an anonymous terrorist, after all?

  I remember how those same Special Branch detectives came in their suits at seven in the morning, banging so hard on the door that they broke the letter box. We were supposedly suspected of harbouring one of the kidnappers who had fled during the botched hostage recovery operation. Convenient that they had someone to pin the loss of money on. That was the kind of carry on that went on back then when money was flowing into the Guards in the name of anti-terrorism. Two birds, one stone: harass a thorn in the side and get paid at the overtime rate for doing it.

  They found his body in the boot of a rusting hulk of an Opel Kadett in a scrap yard on Dublin Hill in October, 1986. Of all the images of your father you want to be left with, a crime scene photo of his rotting corpse in that boot isn’t one of them. But the report of his final moments in the case file paints an even more pathetic image: the frantic struggle for life, the defence wounds on his forearms, the scrapes on his hands and knees as he tried desperately to evade those final blows, then, finally, how he bled out.

  I don't know much about the circumstances that led to my father's death. According to the case file, the senior editor of the Cork Evening Standard had described how my father was working on a cigarette-smuggling story. He went on to say that my father had been keeping things to himself, that he may have gone in over his head on the story. The long and short of it, however, was that the editor knew shag all of any consequence – or at least that was what he claimed.