Father Confessor (J McNee series) (22 page)

Nothing moved.

I saw no sign of Susan’s car. No sign of anything at all.

“Hello? Susan?”

I kept still. Holding my breath. Listening close. Turned towards the sound of something banging; a rough sound with no real rhythm unless you could counted the syncopation of desperation. I walked towards the lockup where the sound was coming from.

“Hello?” I knocked on the door.

The banging increased. Frantic, now. Not against the door itself. No, the sound was muffled, as though whoever was making the noise was slamming against something inside the lockup, maybe the body of a car or a metal locker.

I checked the door number. Not that I needed to, of course.

Ernie’s lockup.

I pulled at the door, twisted the handle. It rolled right up. The banging ceased.

Inside, I couldn’t see anything. I blinked to let my eyes adjust. Flicked the torch around the interior.

The light ran over a figure hunched on the ground, next to a set of metal shelves against the east wall of the lockup. He’d been gagged, had been making a racket by slamming his weight against those shelves. Small objects had been knocked off these and onto the floor. Broken china and shards of glass glittered in the light of my torch.

I stepped forward for a better look at the man who had been left here, bound and gagged.

Kevin Wood was rail-thin, his now-grey hair cropped short. Age hadn’t been kind to him, but then youth hadn’t been his finest hour, either; he’d always been an ugly bastard. He was covered in dust from the floor of the lockup. His face showed signs of what he’d been through. Swollen lips, open cuts, black eyes. His nose was misshapen and was gently trickling blood. Earlier, it had probably been a gush.

I reached down and pulled off his gag.

First words out of his mouth: “Fucking bitch cunt.”

I reacted on instinct. Pulled my fist back. And then lashed out. The prick’s head snapped back, and the shelves rattled as his weight crashed against them once more. For a moment I thought they might come loose and topple over, crushing the ugly bastard.

But they stayed standing.

More’s the pity.

He sat up again, slowly. And spat. Something solid landed on the ground. A tooth perhaps. “You know her, then?”

“You know who she is?”

“That arsehole’s daughter,” he said. “Fucksakes, should have just done the whole family.”

“You know who I am?”

“Think I’d be saying anything if I didn’t, McNee? Christ, but you’re a tenacious fucker, I’ll give you that.” He sounded a world away from the cool, controlled copper who loved to appear in the media and talk about how dedicated he was to public service. Sure, he came across as smarmy, but his act had been good.

Fooled everyone. Except, of course, those in the know.

Like Burns.

Like Ernie.

But no-one can wear a mask all the time. The inevitable truth: it always drops. Sometimes only for a moment.

Sometimes, you can never replace it.

But in the end, a mask can only cover your true face for so long.

The Kevin Wood beneath the mask was like a wild animal, snarling and lashing out. The chains seemed somehow appropriate.

I said, “Why’d she leave you here?”

“She had other business.”

“Such as?”

He was still for a moment. The fight went out of him. He didn’t look at me. “She let me live in exchange for the trigger man.”

The trigger man.

The man who killed her father.

I’d thought maybe all she wanted was a pop at Wood.

But she was aiming deeper than that. More personal. She didn’t give a toss for the corruption angle, or the decades of abuse of power. All she wanted was to get back at the man who had her father’s blood on his hands.

Over the last few days I’d almost forgotten about the trigger man, obsessing over the conspiracy and the corruption. I’d wanted so desperately to connect Ernie’s death to Burns.

Perhaps it burned differently after all these years, but I hadn’t recognised that same old desire for vengeance trying to disguise itself as something higher and nobler. As though it had muted inside me, becoming a quiet and insistent whisper rather than a roaring, all-consuming cry for closure.

But even if I hadn’t seen it in myself, I should have seen it in Susan.

“Give me his name.”

Wood shook his head.

I insisted: “The name.”

“Get to fuck.”

I grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up so our faces were inches apart. My body protested at the movement. My left hand didn’t want to close, so most of the heavy work was done with the right. I tried not to let the pain show.

“The name.”

“Or what?”

“You know you’re sodded anyway? That if the police don’t come for you, David Burns will.”

“Aye, because you’re so close to the foosty old cunt.”

“Piss off!”

But Wood was on a roll, maybe thinking he was like a shark with the scent of blood in the water: “I know he’s been making overtures, that for whatever reason he thinks you’d be a fine addition to his network. But you won’t go for it. If you had your way, you’d see him behind bars.” He hesitated a moment. “Or dead.”

I let Wood drop.

He landed with no dignity, but all the same he laughed. He wasn’t about to give up his confidence, even if he knew I’d never believe it.

I had a number I never thought I’d use. But time was running out. This wasn’t about revenge any more for me. Or that desire to lash out at the world.

Here and now it was about stopping someone making a bad mistake.

I keyed in the number. Let it ring.

“Aye?”

“I’ve got someone here who wants to talk.” I put the phone on speaker, held it out to Wood. “Say hello.”

“Who the fuck’s –”

The voice on the other end of the line let loose a chuckle. Low at first, and then rising until it sounded like he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Wood’s eyes widened. “Cocksucker! Fucking bawbag bastards! Cunting arsewipes, I’m going to –”

“You’re going to what, Kevin?” said the voice on the other end. “What do you think you’re going to do? I knew my man here couldn’t resist giving you what you deserve.”

Then, directed to me: “Where is he?”

I didn’t say anything. Just looked at Wood. Offering a silent challenge. He stared back. I expected him to try and call my bluff. And maybe he was going to, but I think he caught something in my expression that made him hesitate. When my hand made to pull the phone back towards me, he said, “I’ll give you the name.”

I closed the line. Hunkered down before him. Said, “This way, it’s just the law you have to deal with.”

He laughed at that. A short, bitter bark.

“The name. Or this time I tell him right out. And I walk away.”

Wood’s face contorted. He wanted to kill me. If his hands weren’t bound, he might have done so. Instead, his features twisted and he spat out the name: “Mick the Mick,” he said. “Irish prick. Did some time inside for sexual assault, came out a killer for hire.”

“He works exclusively for you?”

“Aye, he’d say so. Probably does gigs on the side, know what these criminal types are like. Never trust them.”

Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Neither of us was laughing.

“You have an address for him?”

“A number.”

I shook my head. “You gave her an address.”

“Why do you want to stop her?”

“Because she’ll be making a mistake.”

“Aye? Don’t think I don’t know you, McNee. That incident at the Necropolis, for example. One man dead, another badly injured? Sure, maybe the survivor wouldn’t talk, but anyone with half a brain could figure what happened. Lindsay let you off. You know that, right? He fudged the report, the whole investigation. Just vague enough that he didn’t need to press charges. The stupid prick seems to have a soft spot for you. What, you think you got off because you were innocent? Christ, the Chief Superintendent was screaming for your blood.”

I could have laughed it off. Knowing that he was baiting me. I didn’t doubt some of what he said was true, but Lindsay wouldn’t have been trying to protect me.

I said, “Just give me the address.”

He shook his head. “Fuck you, then,” and reeled off a street and house number.

I stood up.

“At least leave me the bloody torch!”

I tried not to smile as I rolled the door shut, and left the arrogant bastard there in the dark. Alone.

She hadn’t killed Wood.

That was a good sign.

But then, it was hard to think of Susan as a killer. Like any copper, she had her own store of anger. This, in itself, was not a bad thing. Because you need anger to do the job.

A healthy sense of antagonism is practically a requirement for effective policing. But it needs to be tempered. The edges have to be shaven off. Otherwise you become a thug in uniform; a disgrace to the job. You become like the late Cal Anderson.

I wondered what would happen to the bastard’s body. One thing was certain: Burns would ensure it would never be found. There were many people connected to the old man who had disappeared without a trace over the decades. Sure, the modern cop shows would have you believe that sooner or later all your old skeletons come back to haunt you, but in Burns’s case there could be dozens of bodies he would take with him when he finally died.

There were two others out there as well.

I would have believed one of them to be the trigger man. But then maybe Wood had some sense of propriety after all. Knew that it would take more than corruption for one cop to kill another. When the corrupt shitebag was finally charged, there would be deep feelings among the rank and file: an age-old conflict:

We don’t send down our own.

The uniform is thicker than blood.

It’s the same psychology as in families who don’t want to turn on their own no matter what they’ve done. Except coppers are honour-bound to do something about their bad apples, no matter how they feel about it.

Kevin Wood would be safer in the hands of cops than anywhere else. They’d agonise over what to do with him, but in the end they wouldn’t – they couldn’t – hurt him. Both because he was one of their own and because anything they did to him would be scrutinised by a public enquiry.

Handing Wood over to the coppers was a lose-lose for them.

For him it was the best outcome to the worst day of his life.

He’d be wondering, of course, as he waited in the dark, whether I’d hand him to the police or Burns. Or whether I’d want to deal with him myself. He said he knew who I was, what I had done. But depending on who told him the stories, he might believe I was in some way dangerous.

And maybe I was.

I wondered what Susan had told him. If she’d told him anything. Or just left him there, wondering if he’d die alone amongst one man’s long lost memories. She’d shown mercy of a sort.

But would she be able to exercise the same self-control with Mick the Mick? The man who shot her father?

###

Most people, when they come out of prison, seek out family or friends. Looking to get themselves back into the world; trade off old favours or loyalties and set themselves up once more.

But there’s very few of them wind up in plush converted apartments on the top floor of old Victorian mansions. Of course, if Wood was to be believed, Mick the Mick came out of prison with a saleable skill, even if it wasn’t one of those approved by the parole board.

And there was always someone willing to pay good money for a practiced killer.

I’d learn more about Mick in the months and years to come, as the chaos calmed and the truth floated gently to the calmed surface. What I’d learn was that he went inside a waster, a university dropout originally from County Cork who had turned to drug dealing almost by accident. At first, it had been to raise funds for his course. Later, he dealt narcoticcs because he dug the lifestyle. He abandoned his studies, set himself up as an independent trader. He did well enough, relying mostly on his gift of the blarney to keep him out of trouble.

But he was the kind of moron who was always destined to wind up in the nick. He had no control. And clearly he’d never seen
Scarface
or heard the hoary old maxim:
don’t get high on your own supply
. In the end, Mick was arrested for sexual assault on a young woman. His defence that he’d been under the influence at the time and not in control of his own actions didn’t wash with the court. Mick was sentenced to a year inside. The sentence was light, given that it was Mick’s first recorded offence.

Bad decision.

Mick found it tough adjusting to life inside.

Prison life is not as notorious as its reputation suggests. Not for everyone. But there are elements of truth to the popular mythology. Put any people of a similar type together and you’ll get forms of tribalism and struggles for power and domination. Men like Mick, who’ve never known that world, become easy targets for certain types of people.

Prison is supposed to change a man. That’s the whole idea. So from a certain point of view, then, you could count Mick as a success story. His sentence wasn’t long, wasn’t supposed to be arduous, but after three months inside, Mick found himself with his back to the wall being threatened by a particularly violent prisoner. With his life on the line, Mick dug deep and found his dark side again. Broke the other man’s neck in what the prison officials described as “a particularly brutal assault”.

Funny how brutal a man can turn when he thinks he has nothing left to lose. Mick’s sentence was increased accordingly after the incident.

So, aye, prison changed him. He learned control. He learned direction. He learned violence. He learned patience.

Mick came out clean as a whistle. No more drugs for Mick. A changed man. No longer a drug addict. Instead, he’d become a killer.

And he owed Kevin Wood, too. During his time inside, as his rep grew, he’d done a few jobs for Wood. Nothing too big. But he was rewarded handsomely. Assured of employment on the outside.

His first job being to get rid of a copper who’d been sniffing around places he had no right being. It had been Wood’s idea to plant the drugs near the murder scene.