The Murk Beneath_A Cork Crime Novel Page 5

  “Thanks, Terence,” he said into his mobile phone. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He hung up and looked up at me from the armchair he was sitting in.

  “Michael, Michael. It's good to finally meet.”

  He pointed to an armchair that was old and slightly tatty, but obviously priceless. I sat and sank down into the softly-sprung cushion, my elbows uncomfortably high on the arms. I felt like the seated statue of Abe Lincoln at his memorial building in Washington, DC.

  “Drink, Michael?”

  “I'm fine.”

  I could have murdered one.

  “A little birdie tells me you like Jameson. I've got their eighteen-year-old limited reserve.”

  I wondered what little birdie that might have been. It seemed a lot of people were poking their noses into my affairs of late. And at a time when I had been going out of my way to keep to myself. To be anonymous. To fly below the radar.

  “I’ll bet you’ve got a flock of those birds,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have just a wee drop, then.”

  I smiled politely and hoped it didn’t betray my contempt.

  Jordan gestured to an ornate cabinet. I think it was pure teak or mahogany rather than just veneered. Hand-carved flowers grew from hand-carved urns and meandered the length and height of the cabinet.

  “Be a petal, will you, Grace?”

  Grace was an appropriate name for his daughter. She seemed to have it in spades.

  Jordan’s armchair was identical to mine. He nestled into it comfortably, his elbows at just the right height. He looked like the king of all he surveyed and I must have looked like his court jester.

  “How have you been, Michael. I mean, since the robbery. I heard you took a nasty knock.”

  “The swelling's gone. Most of the pain too.”

  “That's good. The hospital treat you OK?”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  Grace handed me a healthy measure of whiskey in a crystal tumbler and left us alone in the sitting room. As I looked into the glass, I thought that I had never seen a more beautiful colour.

  “And the cost?”

  “No cost. The state picks up the tab. One of the few times it does.”

  I forced another smile.

  “Good, good. Forgive me for all the questions, Michael. You see, I'm just the chairman of Druid Distribution. I'm not au fait with the day-to-day goings on. You understand what a holding company is don't you?”

  He said “au fait” in an exaggerated French accent that almost made me cringe. Did he think the French had a monopoly on class?

  “You own a bunch of companies,” I said, “but other people run them for you while you keep your distance?”

  “More or less, more or less. In the case of Druid, that would be Martin. You know Martin, right?”

  “Yeah. But mostly just to see. Mr O'Brien and I rarely crossed paths, what with me doing the night shift.”

  Mostly just to see. But I’d seen enough to know he was garbage. He was a fat, round man who wore shirts a size or two too small and whose tie looked like a noose around his neck. He treated his employees with disdain and walked by me like I was no more important than a cardboard box.

  “Ah, of course, of course. Well, I'm glad to hear there haven't been any lasting effects. You never know with knocks on the head. Well, that's good, because I want to talk about what happened.”

  “The night of the robbery?”

  “Yes. According to the Garda report, you say they took at least fifteen TVs?”

  Garda report – what was Jordan doing with that?

  “Eh … I would say exactly fifteen.”

  “Of course, of course. You were a copper, after all. Why wouldn’t you be so precise? Facts, facts, facts. Just the facts, ma’am.”

  He laughed at his attempt at humour, baring a set of perfect teeth. With the tan from his obvious trips to sunny climes, he could have passed for a cheesy car salesman. He may have surrounded himself with the trappings of wealth, but he still came across as cheap.

  Jordan looked down at his lap, seeming to ponder something deeply. He did this for about half a minute.

  “You haven't worked since that night have you?” he said, finally.

  “No.”

  “And you haven't signed on either. I know this because you haven't requested a P45.”

  And there was Jordan telling me he knew nothing of the daily goings on in his companies. Yet he had obviously asked Solid Security’s HR person whether I had asked for my P45. What exactly was his relationship with Solid Security? And what was his interest in me?

  “No. It's not my style.”

  Jordan smiled. “That's what I like to hear. You like to earn your keep. That's a good trait in a man.” He leaned forward and the smile dissipated. “We've a lot in common, you and me. A lot in common.”

  I doubted it. “How so?”

  “We've had – how can I put it delicately? – mishaps in the past. And we've tried to move beyond them. To rise above them, as I like to say. Isn't that what you've tried to do, Michael?”

  I was beginning to lose patience. There was an ulterior motive to Jordan's ramblings and I wanted him to get to the point. Quickly.

  “Look, I get it that you know all about me. It seems everyone knows me. Everyone wants a piece of me.”

  Jordan laughed a broad, throaty laugh. Then he smiled so widely that his eyes became slits and his face reddened.

  “Let me cut to the chase then,” Jordan said, much to my relief. “I have a proposition for you. Something suitable for a man of your background. A man of your talents.”

  I could sense where this was going. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the guy.

  “I'm not the lackey kind, Mr Jordan. I don't do the whole beck and call thing.”

  “I know, I know. You're very much your own man. I wouldn't have it any other way. Any other way. This proposition … well, as you have guessed it is a job offer of sorts. But it's one of mutual interest I can assure you.”

  My interest was piqued just a tiny bit. “How so?”

  “I've had my suspicions about Martin for a while. Little things here and there. Things he always has an excuse for. Too readily, though. I became – how can I put it? – a little untrusting. And now with the robbery …”

  “More than a little untrusting.”

  “Exactly,” Jordan said, extending his arm suddenly like he was playing a game of snap. “And if he had something to do with you getting that whack … well, I just figured you might want to be in on it.”

  “In on what?”

  “Surveillance. I want him watched. I want to know who he meets, for how long, and what bad habits he has. I want a picture of his lifestyle. I want to know if he's living beyond his means.”

  I thought it was rich coming from The Gentleman. If ever there was someone who had lived beyond his means – his declared means, at any rate – it was Jordan. Certainly, he had filed his accounts for all his companies and had the appearance of legitimacy. But he had bought his way to legality with ill-gotten gains and I didn't like it. Not when he had been pontificating about earning your keep.

  To buy myself some time to think, I took a laborious sip from the whiskey tumbler. I savoured it. It was good vintage. Beyond my means, though.

  “I don't understand. Why not get one of your own lack- … employees to do this for you?”

  “I'm looking for a man of subtlety. That I do not have in abundance when it comes to my staff. But also a man of integrity. Ten years ago, I would have mistrusted such a man. But I have grown to understand the need for such men. It's why I'm sitting here in my comfortable home while others pace the corridors of Mountjoy or sit in their little terraced houses for fear of attracting attention to themselves.”

  Somehow Jordan had survived the best efforts of the Criminal Assets Bureau. In other cases the CAB had seized possession of cash, property, Land Rovers, horses, and all manner of assets that had been the fruits of organized crime. Many of his c
ontemporaries had been prosecuted under strict new laws against criminal gangs, some of them, as Jordan suggested, pacing their twelve-foot by six-foot cells in Mountjoy prison. Others had been scared into driving battered old cars and living in dingy houses in order not to draw the attention of the authorities on themselves.

  “I'm not going to pretend, Mr Jordan, –”

  “Jim. Please call me Jim.”

  “– that I would be thrilled to be in your employ. The fact is, I don't trust you. And I don't want you to take that personally, Jim. I just don't have the trust gene in my DNA. Not anymore.”

  Jordan seemed to sense my intentions. “But …”

  “I'll do it. If there's some langer out there that had the temerity to fuck me up, then I want to know about it.”

  When it seemed that Jordan could have smiled no wider, he did.

  “That's what I like to hear.” He held up his own glass of the vintage Jameson to toast me. “I'll drink to that.”

  We discussed terms. They were most agreeable to me. Cash, though. This would be an under-the-mattress deal. No trace, no over-zealous spending to trigger suspicion.

  We exchanged mobile numbers and agreed to twice-weekly updates. Then he handed me a manila envelope. He explained that it contained all the vital statistics about O’Brien, the stuff that I would just be wasting my talents collecting. It showed me that he had planned this well in advance, that whether I took the job or not, O’Brien was going to be watched.

  When we had concluded our discussions, Jordan picked up a little brass bell with an old wooden handle and shook it. To the manor born, indeed. The tinkling sound brought Grace back into the room.

  “Please see Mr Bosco to the car, would you, petal?”

  She smiled like a little spaniel.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  In the hall, I spoke to her.

  “You work for your Dad, then?”

  She smiled sweetly, almost innocently.

  “Yes. For my sins.”

  “You don’t look like you’ve sinned a day in your life.”

  She let her guard down, fluttered her perfectly curled eyelashes.

  “Oh, I’ve sinned. Daddy doesn’t know the half of it.”

  “He's quite the man, your Dad. Quite convincing.”

  She smiled again. “Give him a chance. He might just surprise you.”

  Not Jordan. Leopards and their spots, and all that.

  She led me to the car where Mr Stone-Face had been waiting patiently for almost an hour.

  “Take good care of Mr Bosco. And none of that KGB locking of the doors stuff either. Mr Bosco is a friend of ours now.”

  I guessed that was it, though: you were either their friend or their enemy, no middle ground. I'd tipped my hat, kowtowed to The Gentleman. I was his now.

  Back home, I slumped into the couch and absently searched my pockets for the fags I had given up. The whiskey and the stress had made me tired and I almost nodded off. I put back on the chillout music and picked up Billy Budd. Reading calmed me every bit as much as the chillout CD. I would often fall asleep with a book across my chest and wake up as soon as it fell off and hit the floor.

  A knock on the front door made me flinch violently out of a semi-sleep. I reluctantly pulled myself out of the couch where I had sunk down and begun to form a cocoon for myself.

  It was only about ten minutes since I had been dropped home, so I assumed I must have left something in the Merc. I checked my pockets for wallet and phone as I made my way to the front door. But it was Barry.

  This version of Barry was sporting a neatly-trimmed beard and had a discernible scar across his forehead – a far cry from the fresh-faced rookie that I had teamed up with more than a decade earlier.

  “Jesus, Barry. Come on in.”

  I don’t think I hid my surprise on seeing him. It was nearly three years since he had last called socially. It made me wonder if it was, in fact, a social call. I ushered him into the living room and offered him a drink.

  “No thanks. I'm not staying.”

  He said this gruffly. He sounded different than he had the previous day on the phone when he had been jokey.

  He left on his thick wool overcoat and sat on the arm of the couch closest to the door. I stood by the fireplace where a gas fire was just beginning to heat up.

  “To what do I owe the pleas–”

  “Where have you just been, Mick?”

  His face was serious, his scar lost in the folds of his brow.

  “What do you mean? I haven't been anywhere.”

  No way could I have told him where I was. It would raise too many questions, the answers to many of which would put me further out in the cold with one of my last remaining friends.

  “Fuck it, Mick, don't dick me around. You were at Jordan's place.”

  I almost felt my bowels give way as Barry shot me a piercing look. One thing about Barry that you couldn't forget were the eyes. They were dark, unforgiving eyes. The kind that didn't reflect light. The kind that swallowed bullshit up whole.

  “Have you been following me?” I asked.

  “You're some thick cunt if you think you could go see Jordan without it being noticed. You, Mick. You didn't think it would raise a red flag you paying him a visit? He's under surveillance twenty-four seven. Didn't that click with you? Moolah, the hit, Jordan a suspect?”

  He was right. The blue in me was fading. I was beginning to think like a fucking citizen.

  “I didn't have a choice!”

  “Jesus Christ, I knew this would be a waste of –”

  “I'm dead serious, Barry! He had a fucking giant come fetch me. Finn McCool to the power of ten this guy was. Hands as big as frying pans.”

  I put a hand to my throat and simulated strangulation, just for emphasis. Barry sighed heavily and propped his chin on the heel of a hand. He gave me a deep, probing stare.

  “Bad enough you strangled Chambers without strangling yourself now. The man is O'Keeffe,” he said, the sound almost lost in his laboured exhalation. “William O'Keeffe.”

  Finally a name to put to the block of granite.

  “You'd better start talking, Mick. From the beginning.”

  I’d only give him the bare essentials, try to account for my time. I didn’t think it would fly, though.

  “He just wanted to talk about Churchfield. He asked if I was OK, if I needed anything. He asked if I had any hospital bills or anything like that and I just said that the state had picked up the bill. We shared a whiskey and what's-his-face – this O'Keeffe guy – took me home. Then you turn up like the Spanish inquisition.”

  “And all that took fifty minutes?”

  “He talks real slow.”

  I couldn’t help my bravado. I’d been shipping blows from all angles the past few days, so I was beginning to lose my cool. Barry stood up and closed the distance between himself and me. We were almost touching noses.

  “Well, maybe you think I'm real slow if you think I'm buying that crap.”

  I couldn’t help myself at this point. I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly. Barry's arm twitched as if he were within a hair's breadth of grabbing me by the throat. I’d had quite enough of being manhandled for one day, so I was prepared to strike back.

  “Stay away from Jordan,” he said, little beads of spittle dotting around my face. “Or you'll land yourself in a small room with nothing but you, me, and a phone book.”

  I wasn’t going to be intimidated by that cliché. I held my ground. I felt roots under my feet again, like I had during the robbery, but good ones this time – ones that would hold me steady against an attack. Appearing to recognize this, Barry backed away from me a bit and began to breathe more easily. His face changed and he looked pleadingly at me.

  “What did I say, Mick? Watch your back, I said.”

  I said nothing and just nodded. Barry shook his head and walked to the sitting room door.

  “Don't back me into a corner,” Barry said, keeping his back to me. “I value our
friendship, Mick. But let me be straight … I can’t be seen within a country mile of you if you hang around with the likes of Jordan.”

  I wondered what the difference between a country mile and any other mile was, but decided the time for joking had passed. I considered telling him that Jordan had gone legit, that he was audited and everything. But I didn’t believe it myself.

  “Something goes wrong, Mick, and I can’t be there to rescue you.”

  “I’m a big man, Barry. I can look after numero uno.”

  “Well … you better. I don’t want to find you in some landfill somewhere, just another case on my desk.”

  And with that he turned and left without another word.

  I tried to shout something after him, but it was like my mouth was gone. Like in my nightmares. Only now I was in my own living nightmare.

  I sat back in the couch not quite knowing what to make of Jordan's offer, of why I so readily accepted it, or why I wanted to put myself into the centre of a maelstrom with Barry Cotter on my back. I decided that under the circumstances a stiff drink was in order. I had just enough for a double measure in an old bottle left over from the previous Christmas. I emptied it into a tumbler and sipped from it, then put it on the side table next to the couch. I started up the CD player again and the synthesized sounds of nature and electronica once again soothed me. I picked up Billy Budd and found the last page I had read before the interruptions. If there was another knock on the door, I was going to ignore it.

  I read until I reached the end of part one. I remembered my father sitting in an old cloth-covered armchair he had been particularly fond of – his chair. His reading chair, worn through to the sponge on the arm where he used to balance the corner of a book as he peered intently at the page.

  I turned the page to begin part two and … something fell on the ground. A slip of paper. As crisp as a new bank note, like it had been written yesterday. On it was written the address of the scrap yard where his body had turned up in the boot of a car. Below the address was written: “20,000 Camels. Starman.”

  A shot of adrenaline hit me right between the eyes. Camels. Cigarettes. That story of his about the smuggling operation – it was true after all. 20,000 cigarettes. I did a quick calculation: 200 fags to a carton, so that meant 100 cartons. Not big enough for a main shipment, perhaps, but big enough for a local dealer. And what or who was Starman?