Read The Midnight Choir Online
Authors: Gene Kerrigan
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural
The Midnight Choir (11 page)
Crotty got the death sentence, with the subsequent customary commutation to life in jail. The day after the guilty verdict, one of the tabloids had a picture of Harry Synnott on the front page, walking from the court. The headline was ‘The Man Who Told The Truth’.
12
Happy as I am.
‘For every colleague who admires what you did, ten of them will despise you.’ Colin O’Keefe had been an inspector at the time, peripherally involved in the Sheelin murder investigation, and he sought out Synnott to offer congratulations and a word of warning. His prediction had proven accurate. Synnott’s role in the Crotty trial defined him to his colleagues as untrustworthy. It didn’t matter that senior officers knew about the beating of suspects, it didn’t matter that politicians knew and that some had privately given their approval. Synnott’s betrayal meant that two experienced detectives ended up taking early retirement because a colleague had ignored the unwritten rules. Several years later, when Synnott reported a garda for shaking down a pub owner, the estrangement from his colleagues increased. The garda was suspended, then sacked.
‘You’re a back-stabber. No matter where you go, no matter how much brown-nosing you do with the brass, that’ll be your epitaph.’ Sergeant Derek Ferry, a colleague at Turner’s Lane, had never been more than cool to Synnott. Hostilities came into the open when Synnott gave evidence at a disciplinary hearing against another sergeant at the station, a man accused of misappropriation of petty cash. The tension within the station became a part of the daily routine, on several occasions erupting in shouting matches. On the advice of Assistant Commissioner Colin O’Keefe, Harry Synnott had recently transferred out of the Turner’s Lane station.
Happy as I am.
Over the eighteen years since the Crotty case O’Keefe had maintained contact, being helpful whenever possible. Synnott was slightly shocked to be seriously considering the possibility of a move away from the kind of policing that had been the centre of his life for more than two decades. When O’Keefe had first asked him if he was in the market, Synnott had said only, ‘I’m interested.’ O’Keefe changed the subject and they hadn’t talked since then. Now, finishing off the glass of milk that came with his chicken sandwich, O’Keefe said, ‘How’s your French?’
‘Rusty schoolboy.’
‘Good enough, with a crash course to bring you up to speed.’
‘You’re offering me a job in France?’
‘The Netherlands at first, Paris eventually. You’ve heard of Europol?’
Synnott could feel the hope inside him dim.
‘Vaguely.’
‘It came out of the Maastricht Treaty, started off coordinating anti-drug strategies for police forces across Europe. Now, as these EU things will do, it’s grown and grown. Over three hundred souls based in The Hague, and countless more employed in liaison bureaus, one in every country in the EU, and more outside it, all liaising away like rabbits.’
A niche in the bureaucracy.
‘Sir—’
Over the years, O’Keefe had given up on telling Synnott to call him Colin. Now he shook his head.
‘I know what you’re thinking and you’re dead wrong.’ He took a sheet of paper from a file and passed it to Synnott. It was an organisational chart. ‘That’s the structure. Bureaucracy galore – then there’s the Information and Technology Department and the Department of Corporate Governance. That one there, in the middle, the Serious Crime Department, that’s where I want to put you. The criminals are international, and what we’re trying to put in place is a structure that efficiently confronts that.’
‘Doing what?’
‘There’ve been conferences, seminars, the usual bullshit, but serious people have been talking on the sidelines. About structures and about bringing the best people together. We can’t stop the bureaucracy weaving its usual web, but we
can
build something from the ground up that can make a difference in confronting organised crime, fraud, terrorism, currency forgery.’
can
build something from the ground up that can make a difference in confronting organised crime, fraud, terrorism, currency forgery.’
Despite his doubts, Synnott could feel the hope flicker again.
O’Keefe said, ‘It’s cutting-edge stuff. The world is changing and policing has to change with it. Everyone you work with will be as serious about policing as you are. It’s solid, useful, hands-on work. It’s well paid, with generous expenses. And it gets you out of the corner you’ve painted yourself into.’
Synnott sat silently for several moments. He tried to keep his tone flat. ‘I didn’t know I’d painted myself into anything.’
O’Keefe finished the last of his sandwich. ‘Clear away the bullshit, Harry, and what you’ve got is this – you told the truth in a garda murder, and there’s no more serious case. You told the truth and you took the heat. Since then you have put away some of the most dangerous people this city has had inflicted on it. Wilkinson – we don’t know how many kids were spared that bastard’s tender mercies since you took him out of circulation. Or how many women escaped having their lives torn asunder by Hartigan. Swanson Avenue – there you closed down a cold-blooded killer who might have walked. I don’t know one other garda who has single-handedly done more public service for this city than you have.’
Synnott waited for the but.
‘And if you haven’t got the sense to turn a blind eye when your colleagues cross a line – well, you’ve paid the price for that.’
‘You think I should have turned a blind eye?’
‘That’s not what I said. Any police force, it has ways of doing things – and when things go wrong we tend to sort it out quietly.’
‘Circle the wagons?’
‘If you like. There’s a lot of fucking Apaches out there. Apart from the scum we have to deal with, there’s the newspapers and the television, the politicians and the civil-liberties people, Uncle Tom Cobley. Whenever they get a taste of victory, they lose respect, start sniffing everyone’s trouser leg.’
‘I thought you saw it my way.’
‘You did what you thought was right and I admire that and I’ll back any man who does what he thinks is right – but, like I said, you pay a price. And we end up with one of our best detectives moving from station to station because other good coppers won’t work with him.’
Harry Synnott suddenly felt like he was in an argument that he didn’t care about any more. O’Keefe was doing what Synnott knew had to be done from time to time. Stand outside the problem. See things coldly and clearly, do what had to be done.
O’Keefe rapped his knuckles on his desk. ‘Enough of that. How do you feel about kissing the minister’s arse?’
Synnott smiled. ‘There had to be a catch.’
‘You have to meet the minister. Impress him. He wants a nomination from me, but he has the final say.’
O’Keefe wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then flicked imaginary crumbs from his shirt-front and straightened his tie. ‘He just needs to see that you don’t drool down your chin. Maybe throw a few statistics at him, a little slang so he feels he’s had a whiff of the streets. And smile and shuffle your feet a bit, so he knows you’re nervous to be in the presence of a man of substance. It’s a doddle.’
‘When and where?’
‘Sunday morning, Haddington Road church, after eleven o’clock Mass. Some politicians natter on about post-Catholic Ireland, but our lad likes to be seen saying a quiet prayer. He’ll be in man-of-the-people mode.’
Synnott felt his usual unease with the civilities. ‘Look, I ought to say thanks – I mean, over the years, you’ve—’
The phone rang. O’Keefe picked it up and held a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I’ve never done anything that wasn’t what I thought best for the force.’ He put the phone to his ear and said his name.
After a few seconds he said, ‘Have they been identified?’
O’Keefe listened for another minute, occasionally saying things like ‘And?’ or ‘So?’ Finally, he said, ‘Jesus
Christ
.’ Then, ‘Keep me informed, minute by minute. Whatever you need.’
Christ
.’ Then, ‘Keep me informed, minute by minute. Whatever you need.’
When O’Keefe hung up he said, ‘Galway.’ He shook his head. ‘Like something you read about happening in the wilds of Kansas, somewhere like that. Two people, adult male and a teenager, also male. Dead in a house in Bushy Park. Knifed, maybe. Some kind of edged weapon, anyway – maybe a hatchet. The locals have a man for it – and they think he might have done another one, a woman, but they can’t find the body.’
Harry Synnott stood up. ‘I’ll leave you to it, so.’
O’Keefe said, ‘Remember, smile, street slang and shuffle your feet for the minister.’
*
My name is Detective Inspector Harry Synnott, c/o Macken Road Garda Station.On the afternoon of Wednesday 13
th
April I attended at the Sexual Assault Unit of the Rotunda Hospital following a call from the station informing me of an alleged sexual assault. There I met Detective Garda Rose Cheney and together we interviewed a Ms Teresa Hunt, who made an allegation of sexual assault against one Max Hapgood Jr. Detective Garda Cheney took down the details of Ms Hunt’s allegation and the complainant signed the statement in my presence. Garda Cheney also made notes of the complainant’s remarks, which the complainant signed.
The statement from Harry Synnott would be a general outline of the allegations made and the consequent steps taken by the police. The heart of the file for the DPP would include the victim’s statement, a report from the doctor at the Sexual Assault Unit, Cheney’s statement and Synnott’s own account.
Having obtained an address for the alleged assailant, Detective Garda Cheney and I drove to Castlepoint, where—
Harry Synnott figured he’d be spending the rest of the afternoon at the keyboard. He had the elements needed to make his own statement strong. First, the
mens rea
, starting with Max Junior lying that his mother wasn’t home. Then the mother’s insistence on getting her husband to come home, the husband immediately reaching for a lawyer, the family conference before Max Junior was allowed to speak to the police. The Hapgoods were entitled to do what they had done, but a good lawyer could bring out the subtext of guilty knowledge. Then the father recording part of the interview, the mother’s aggressive remarks about the complainant being a silly bitch who couldn’t keep her legs closed. There was no evidence of what had been said at the family conference, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for the jury to guess. Nothing conclusive, and the jury would be warned to make its decision on hard evidence, but laying out an account of the family’s conduct was the kind of thing that bolsters a jury’s confidence.
mens rea
, starting with Max Junior lying that his mother wasn’t home. Then the mother’s insistence on getting her husband to come home, the husband immediately reaching for a lawyer, the family conference before Max Junior was allowed to speak to the police. The Hapgoods were entitled to do what they had done, but a good lawyer could bring out the subtext of guilty knowledge. Then the father recording part of the interview, the mother’s aggressive remarks about the complainant being a silly bitch who couldn’t keep her legs closed. There was no evidence of what had been said at the family conference, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for the jury to guess. Nothing conclusive, and the jury would be warned to make its decision on hard evidence, but laying out an account of the family’s conduct was the kind of thing that bolsters a jury’s confidence.
The core of that part of the case was that Harry Synnott at no point, in the Hapgood house, detailed the complaint made by Teresa Hunt. All the Hapgoods knew was that a young lady had made a complaint. Yet, after the family conference, it was clear that the family knew of the sexual nature of the complaint.
‘ . . . A silly bitch who has trouble keeping her legs closed . . .’
Stitching Max Junior into an admission that the sex wasn’t consensual would be more difficult, being entirely verbal and implicit in the notes, some made by Synnott alone, some by Synnott and Rose Cheney. Their credibility on the stand would be crucial.
‘When we started, she wanted it as much as I did.’
‘You know what that’s like – you can’t turn it on and off like a fucking tap.’
‘She wanted it and she got what she wanted.’
It remained a she-says-he-says, but Synnott reckoned that the clear evidence of guilty knowledge would add sufficient weight to the verbal admissions to help a jury tip the scales.
13
GALWAY
When Joe Mills arrived back at McCreary Street station the place was buzzing with the news about the two bodies he’d found in the house at Bushy Park. An inspector met him in the public office and said, ‘The nutcase, he hasn’t said a word to the shrink. He wants to talk– the way he puts it – to the copper from the roof.’
The sergeant and the shrink were still with Wayne Kemp when Joe Mills arrived. The sergeant was looking pissed-off, and the shrink might have been disappointed but she was hiding it well. Once word came in about the find in Bushy Park, the chief superintendent had asked a solicitor to represent Kemp. The suspect shrugged. It wasn’t assent, but it wasn’t rejection, so it would do. The solicitor, a young man with long sideburns who looked like he’d rather be doing a bit of conveyancing, sat just inside the door, looking nervous. Wayne Kemp was puckering his lips and doing that flexing thing that made his neck muscles stick out. He didn’t look up when Mills came in.
Mills stood a few feet from Kemp and looked down at him. ‘They said you wanted—’
Kemp looked up at him. ‘Did you ever live in Blackpool?’
‘Blackpool?’
‘Blackpool, England.’
‘No.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘What’s this about?’
‘Up on that roof, I turned around – I can tell you, one more second I was going off, backwards flip – you know what I mean? – like in the Olympics. Then, I thought I knew you.’
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