The Angel Tapes (27 page)

Dad

Elaine looked at her watch. It was a little after two in the afternoon—early morning in Argentina.

She was answered by a woman who spoke almost flawless English, a servant. Presently her father came on the line. He sounded tired but in good humor.

“Elaine! You got my note, did you?”

“Yes, Daddy. How are you? What's the weather like in Buenos Aires?”

“I'm grand and it's raining, but never mind about that. Listen, I didn't want to say too much in the E-mail; I'd be afraid someone else might read it.”

“All very mysterious.…”

“You could say that, Elaine. But I think I have a story here that you could use. Who knows, it might earn you a few more bob a week. Are you listening?”

“Fire away.”

“The thing is, I thought about getting in touch with the gardaí about it, but then I decided I'd put it your way first.”

“Hmm.”

“You see, Carlos is a first cousin of the chief of police here and he told me that they'd picked up three Irishmen the other day. They have them down in the cells—God knows what they're doing to the poor bastards; I don't
want
to know. They're a rough lot; even Carlos will admit that. But do you know what the three lads were charged with, Elaine?”

“Umm, a robbery?”

“No, better still. They were trying to pass off fake jewelry. They tried to con a collector here with masses of the stuff. He was completely taken in, too—though you'd have thought that someone like him would have been able to spot the difference. Apparently not. It was very well done. Glass or paste, or whatever they make these things from. I saw it myself. Brilliant job.”

“Excuse me, Daddy, but I don't see what all of this—”

“Will you wait now a second? God, you're as bad as your mother. What I'm saying is that Carlos took me to see the stuff, and I got the surprise of my life. You weren't there when your mother threw that big dinner party last year, so you wouldn't have seen Patsy Delahunt's emerald necklace. Your mother never stopped admiring it all evening, and she wasn't the only one. Well, it's here, Elaine—in Buenos Aires.”

“What!”

“You heard me. Except it isn't the real one, just like the rest of the haul. All fake. So the question is: What happened to the real jewelry? Now get this: here's the good part. I overheard Don Delahunt a week or two ago telling his cronies in the Paddock Club that he'd had the wife's precious baubles insured to the tune of two-and-a-half million and he'd make damn sure the insurance company shelled out.”

“Very interesting.”

“Isn't it though? I never liked that man, Elaine. Too much unaccounted-for income. Not that I begrudge him that; I'm no saint myself. I just never liked his manner, that's all. He's an uncouth bastard.”

Elaine sighed. “You don't have to tell me, Daddy. I know.”

“I think it's worth looking into, don't you? But you better do it quick; they'll be getting in touch with Dublin soon, if they haven't done it already.”

“I'll get onto it right away. Thanks for the tip, Daddy.”

“Don't mensh.”

“When will you be back?”

“Uh, next week, I think. It depends. Be sure to give Cusack a boot in the arse for me.”

“I will. Bye, Daddy.”

Thoughtful, Elaine went to the big table at the back of the office. She delved into the untidy, scissored pile of back numbers of the
Sunday Courier
and found a copy of the issue of two weeks before.

The story had merited a mention on the front page, together with a full account on page four. The home of Don Delahunt, former government minister and friend to the famous, had been burgled. The intruders had gotten past some of the most sophisticated antitheft devices in the country and made away with Mrs. Patsy Delahunt's collection of jewelry. Sure enough, the items—a badly registered color photograph showed the gems in their platinum and gold settings—had been insured for more than £2.5 million.

Elaine had wondered at the time why Delahunt had drawn so much attention to the robbery—and to the value of the stolen jewels. He was known as a man who was ever reluctant to disclose any details of his personal fortune. Yet Elaine's colleague, the reporter who'd filed the story, had told her that Delahunt had informed the radio and all the papers within an hour of discovering the break-in.

She believed Don Delahunt might not be so forthcoming with regard to the follow-up story she planned.

Elaine made two phone calls. One to the Delahunt mansion in County Kildare, the other to Blade Macken. As usual, he could not be reached at Harcourt Square. Elaine left a message for him to call her. Urgently.

She'd missed yesterday's paper. She was determined that the following Sunday's edition would carry the story that would be the watershed in her career. Blade Macken had, she was certain, the goods that she needed. And now Elaine had something worthwhile to trade.

Thanks, Daddy.

Thirty-four

Gareth Smyth and the others were good, Blade had to concede. He scanned the top stories of the houses opposite Angel's lair through a pair of high-powered binoculars but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yet Blade knew that at least twenty telescopic sights were trained on that house and that the men whose fingers were on the triggers could light a match at two hundred yards.

Blade heard the sudden approach of a helicopter. He tensed.

“Fuck. Who ordered that? It wasn't us.”

“Nor us,” Redfern said.

But the chopper was headed in another direction and Blade saw it was a commercial aircraft. He relaxed. He returned the binoculars to the car and looked over the street.

There was a big, circular green in the middle, where a number of very young trees grew; two paths formed a cruciform shape on the green. The only sign of life was an old man walking a mongrel dog.

They were at the intersection of Bangor Road South and Clonmacnoise Road, and the unmarked cars they'd come in were backed up for a hundred yards, out of sight of Angel's home. The public-housing estate was like so many that ringed the center of Dublin: mean and primitive, not the kind of place you'd choose to raise your children in. Most of the cars in the tiny driveways looked barely roadworthy. Yet the houses were well-kept; many had little front gardens planted with flowerbeds, rosebushes, and shrubs.

Macken's radio squawked.

“We're in place round the back, sir. No sign of any movement in the house. The radio's still on though.”

“Okay. Stay there. I'm going in now.”

“I'm coming with you, sir,” Sweetman said.

“No, you most certainly are not, Detective Sergeant. You wait here and maintain radio contact.” He addressed the others. “The same applies to the rest of you. The last thing we want is to panic her into doing something rash.”

“But sir, do you not think she might be more cooperative with a woman along?” Sweetman persisted.

Macken thought about this. He didn't wish to expose Sweetman to unnecessary danger, yet knew she was probably right. Her presence had helped before, in other confrontations. But with Carol Merrigan?

“All right,” he said at last, grudgingly. “But let me do the talking. Don't open your mouth unless she speaks directly to you.”

They set off down the curving street. Blade was acutely aware of the weapon he carried in the waistband of his pants: a .22 semiautomatic. He thought of the last time he'd been issued a gun, more than two months before. He hadn't used it then and had been glad of that fact. Blade didn't like guns, had seen more than most men what guns did to people—to their victims
and
to their bearers.

The Crumlin police were right: the house definitely looked abandoned. There was a graffito sprayed in white paint on the low wall out front. It read
BURN WICH BURN
!!! The weeds in the little garden reached waist high; dumped cola and cider cans sparkled metallically among the fronds. The path was strewn with dog shit and the trash of many years. There was even a discarded diaper. Was there, Blade wondered idly, something symbolic about that?

There were two windows at the front. The bigger downstairs window had cracked panes; the net curtains behind it were gray and filthy; they hadn't been washed in a long time. The upstairs window was pasted on the inside with newspaper.

Stepping around the dog turds, Blade went to the front door and carefully pushed back the flap on the mail slot. He saw little more than an empty hall, but heard the voice of a radio chat-show host ask a guest something about a new and revolutionary diet. Macken shut the flap and pressed the doorbell.

Nothing stirred. He looked at Sweetman, waited a full minute, then pressed the bell a second time.

“I don't think there's anybody home, Blade.”

He waited another minute, then tried again. He heard only the echo of the ring and muffled voices from the radio. He activated his own.

“We're going in.”

“Do you want backup, sir?”

“No, stay where you are. I'll call you if I need you.”

Blade had the door open faster than it took to pick Jim Roche's lock on Crow Street. He held his breath as he drew the handgun from his waistband and took a step over the threshold. He didn't know what he was going to find. It came as a surprise therefore when a very, very commonplace little house confronted him. It had not been tidied in a long time and smelled stale and airless.

Blade saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were cheap prints on the walls of the hall, a mirror framed in fake gold leaf; a worn, floral-patterned carpet and a hat rack, empty. Sweetman followed him into the cramped front room.

Again, nothing unusual. The room, too, was in need of dusting. The chairs and couch were old but looked comfortable. There was a glass-fronted case with crockery, drinks glasses, and silver ornaments, the kind of stuff that elderly people are fond of accumulating. There was even an old-fashioned radiogram in a corner, together with a collection of Perry Como and Dean Martin record albums. A television set, small. The whole room was so damn ordinary that Blade felt a rising sense of disappointment. He moved to check the rest of the house.

It was then he saw the potted plant next to the door.

The following thoughts occurred to Blade Macken in less time than it takes for the heart to skip a beat and start pumping again. But his subconscious had given him a head start, had registered the anomalies almost as soon as he'd entered the room.

The thoughts were: The plant did not belong there, on a small, low table: the carpet below the table was bright and clean, a sign that a bigger piece of furniture had stood there for many years: bits of earth speckled the table and the portion of clean carpet: the plant stood crookedly in fresh soil: sunlight filtering through the grayed net curtain reflected off an almost invisible strand of clear material: the strand led in the direction of the front door.

“Get out of here, Sweetman,” Blade urged in a hoarse whisper. “Out of the house. Don't run, or you might panic one of Smyth's lads.”

“What is it, Blade?”

“For fuck's sake, go, go! Don't argue with me now.”

Sweetman left without another word.

He'd come across the trick in south Lebanon. The Hizbollah were experts at it. You worked with two timers, the first attached to the front door. It was triggered when the door was opened, snapping a semitransparent thread. The timer was designed to set off a
second
timer after the intruder had entered, when he was well within the house. This second timer activated a concealed detonator some minutes later.

Blade knew where that detonator was.

His mouth was dry as he grasped the stalk of the plant and pulled it slowly up out of the pot, bringing half the soil with it. The exposed timer made no sound but Blade knew that its mechanism was counting down the seconds.

He raised it. Two thin wires led to a small detonator embedded in a lump of smooth material resembling candle wax. Blade reached for his car keys and the miniature Swiss Army pocketknife attached to the ring. He extracted one of its four tools and carefully used it to slice through the wires. Then he gasped for air; without being conscious of it, he'd been holding his breath for more than forty-five seconds.

Forensic testing of the second timer might reveal how many minutes—seconds—Blade had had left, how close he'd been to annihilation. He didn't think he wanted to know.

“Sweetman?”

Her voice came over the walkie-talkie at once.

“You can come back in now. Tell the others it's all clear.”

Blade sat down heavily on the couch and lit a Hamlet. He was still perspiring when Sweetman came back in the room with Redfern and two of his associates. She eyed the wrecked plant and the devices, went to the pot, and studied its contents; frowned.

“Nails,” Blade confirmed. “Dirty great four-inch nails. If that gelignite had gone up, then the place would have been like a shooting gallery, nails flying everywhere. We'd have died instantly. Fucking hell, I don't know where she learned it but she's a dangerous bitch and no mistake.”

“Booby trap,” Redfern said superfluously, inspecting the flowerpot. “And enough gelignite to take out the entire house—maybe two, three of these houses. This lady plays rough.”

The house was full of men now, in bulletproof vests, many armed with assault rifles and handguns. Walkie-talkies chattered; somebody had switched off the radio in the kitchen. Blade heard boots tramping up the stairs. Presently a voice called out.

“Sir, I think you'd better see this.” It was Gareth Smyth.

Sweetman, Macken, and Redfern ascended to the second floor. It bore no resemblance to the first.

Angel's lair was a shrine to two people from Blade Macken's past. There they were, smiling down on him from pictures on the walls: Gerry and Breda Merrigan. Gerry and Breda on their wedding day, young and hopeful; on vacation in the west of Ireland; somewhere in Spain; on a Greek island. Gerry and Breda at a party, among friends; at some child's christening; posing for a formal photograph; in their twenties, thirties, in middle age.