TORN (16 page)

Gorman scowled. ‘Ho
w
like on a stretcher?’

‘No. I’m thinking something more along the lines of those two-wheel dollies delivery drivers use.’

His expression was dubious but he said nothing.

Reilly looked over Coffey’s body, paying close attention to the wrists.

‘No ligature marks on Crowe either,’ Gorman said quickly. ‘We checked.’

‘What if the killer didn’t use rope but something else to bind them?’

‘Like what? Duct tape?’

Reilly nodded and held up one of Coffey’s hands, peering closely at his wrists. ‘It is an effective way of binding someone, and it wouldn’t leave the marks we typically see from ropes.’

Gorman was standing back, watching but reluctant to participate. ‘Well, if that’s what you’re looking for, I would check the clothes. Chances are the tape might not even have touched the skin.’

Reilly set Coffey’s arm back down on the gurney, and walked round to the other side. ‘Coffey’s clothes were such a mess it was impossible to get anything at all from them. But if any tape did touch the skin, then …’ She lifted his other hand and again examined the wrist. ‘There.’

Gorman put his hands behind his back and leaned forward towards the point Reilly was examining. He scowled. ‘What exactly am I looking at?’

She turned the underside of Coffey’s arm towards the light. There was the faintest gap in the dark hair around his wrist. Perhaps removed by adhesive from duct tape?  Reilly looked up at Gorman. ‘See it? He must have been bound, just like Jennings, and I’d be willing to bet that Crowe was too.’ Such a shame he was already six foot under, and they couldn’t check.

Gorman straightened up. ‘What I see is wishful thinking,’ he said gruffly, stepping over to the line of metal doors. ‘Are we finished?  I’m sure Mr Coffey’s family would like to bury him sometime soon.’

Ignoring him, Reilly peeled off her gloves and threw them in the bin. Pulling a camera from her kitbag nearby, she pointed the lens and zoomed in on the area around Coffey’s wrist.

Gorman opened the door, and looked impatiently back towards Reilly as the flash of her camera lit up the room. ‘Luke, we’re finished here, or one of us is at least.’ He stood in the doorway, muttering away to himself. ‘If I don’t get some nicotine soon I’m going to get really cranky.’

Like we’d notice the difference
, Reilly shot back silently.

She took five photos in quick succession before finally standing up. ‘I’ll have Julius go over both sets of clothes again for traces of adhesive or resin,’ she told Gorman. ‘See what we have.’

Gorman looked at her, a dour expression on his face. ‘Whatever you like, Steel. Fool’s errands are, after all, your speciality.’

The pub in Dublin’s Sheriff Street was dark, unwelcoming – not a woman in sight and no background music. A football match played on the big-screen TV in the corner. When Chris and Kennedy walked in a few locals glanced up and gave them suspicious frowns before returning to the morose contemplation of their pints.

Chris looked around, and nudged his partner. ‘Remind me never to bring a date in here.’

Kennedy grunted. ‘You could bring Miss Baywatch, no problem,’ he chuckled under his breath. ‘I’m sure she’d love this place.’

They made their way to the bar, and slid onto two empty stools. The barman was a big guy in his late fifties, with the face of an ex-boxer, or maybe a prop forward – flattened nose, thick eyebrows, enlarged ears.  He looked as though he’d probably started (and finished) many a pub brawl. He gave the detectives a disinterested glance as they sat down, and wiped listlessly at the bar with a grimy tea towel.

Chris met his eye. ‘Two pints of Guinness.’

The barman slowly levered himself off the bar, and wordlessly filled two pint glasses, before setting them in front of him. Chris slid across a tenner. The barman took it, rang up the sale, and flipped the change on to the countertop.

‘Who you looking for?’ he asked suddenly.

Kennedy shook his head, and turned to Chris. ‘Told you we should have left our shiny badges in the car.’

‘Nah,’ Chris replied. ‘It’s the caps and trucheons that gave us away.’

The barman was not amused. ‘You two could come in here dressed like Ronald McDonald and I’d still know you were cops . So, who are you after?’

Kennedy took a sip. ‘Old mate of mine, Johnny Crowe, retired cop, spent a lot of time here.’

The barman nodded. ‘I knew him.’ He leaned his meaty forearms on the bar, picked idly at a cigarette burn in the wood with his thick fingernails. ‘What about him?’

‘We just want a little help for you,’ Chris said. ‘Some basic information.’

‘Like who did he drink with?’ chipped in Kennedy. ‘This was his home away from home – who were his mates?’

The barman looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Can’t say there was anyone in particular. He just liked to have a drink, watch the game …’

‘He didn’t have any mates here – any regulars?’ Chris asked. ‘Just liked to have a drink—’

‘And watch the game. That’s right.’

Chris nodded slowly and sipped at his beer. ‘I get it.’ 

He looked around, pointed to a group of teenagers sitting in the corner also drinking beer and watching the game. ‘I’ll bet that at least half of those are under age …’ He indicated two more youngsters at the far end of the bar, drinks in hand.  ‘And if those two are eighteen I’ll eat your tea towel.’

The barman looked down at the blackened rag in his hand. He wiped it gently across the bar. ‘We’ve been together a long time, I’d hate to see any harm come to her …’  He looked up, and tilted his head slightly to the far side of the room where two men sat talking quietly. ‘Those would be the closest to what you’d call friends of Crowe’s.’ Chris looked over Kennedy’s shoulder at them. ‘The small one is Micky McCarthy,’ explained the barman. ‘Corkonian git who fancies himself as a ladies’ man.  The big fellow – don’t know his real name – he’s a Russki or something.  Everyone calls him Ivan.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Nasty piece of work.  You might want watch yourself with that one.’

Kennedy glanced over at them. ‘They were Crowe’s mates?’

The barman shrugged. ‘Closest thing he had to mates around here.’

Chris picked up his pint. ‘All right then, let’s go mix with the locals …’

The one the barman had referred to as Ivan looked up as they approached, his radar instantly on high alert. He had a brutal face, with a mass of dark hair swept back from sharp Slavic cheekbones. He started to stand but Chris moved quickly, and blocked his path, his badge in his hand.

‘Have a seat, Ivan, we just want to have a little chat.’

Micky McCarthy looked up and smiled. ‘Cops? Nice one.’ He had a singsong Cork accent, was small and wiry, and dressed in an Adidas T-shirt and shiny blue track suit bottoms. He smiled, showing several missing teeth.

The two men sat across from one another in a corner booth.  Kennedy and Chris slid in, one either side, blocking them in. Ivan looked back and forth between them, his dark eyes weighing up the situation.  Despite the smoking ban, he sucked on a cigarette, a haze of smoke wreathing his face.

‘What you want?’ His accent was strong, his grammar imperfect, but he had a presence, and an air of menace hung on his words.

‘We just want to ask you a few questions,’ Kennedy began. ‘About Johnny Crowe.’

Ivan furrowed his brow. ‘I don’t know no – what was his name?’

‘Crowe,’ Chris informed him, ‘John Crowe.’

McCarthy chipped in,  ‘Sure you do, Ivan. Cracker – Johnny Crowe was Cracker's real name.’

Ivan nodded slowly. ‘Ah, Cracker. Big guy, used to be cop?’

Kennedy nodded. ‘That’s the ticket.’

McCarthy gave a little laugh. ‘Poor fucker wound up in a freezer, last I heard.’

‘That’s right.’ Chris looked between the two of them. ‘Any ideas why?’

Ivan shrugged, flicked ash from his cigarette onto the table. ‘Why should we know that?’

‘Because you did business with him.’

Ivan shook his head. ‘Beer, yes. Business? No.’

Chris was seated next to Ivan. He turned and stared at him from close range. Ivan met his gaze, unblinking. ‘You know it’s illegal to smoke in a pub, don’t you?’

Ivan kept his eyes on Chris, took another drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out towards him. ‘So arrest me.’

Chris felt a trickle run down his back – there was something almost feral in Ivan’s gaze. This was a man capable of murder. In fact, Chris felt certain that Ivan had killed already, and would have no qualms about doing so again. Was this their guy?

‘Boys, boys …’  The tension seemed to be making McCarthy uncomfortable.  He reached across the table, and tugged at Chris’s arm. ‘Hey, we liked Cracker, and we don’t know anything about his death.  It was a shock to us too, wasn’t it, Ivan?’

Ivan’s eyes bored into Chris’s soul. Finally he smiled, a cold twist of his mouth that left his eyes unmoved, and stubbed his cigarette out on the table. ‘Sure.  Big shock.’

Chris finally looked away, and glanced across the table at Kennedy. ‘Well, if you don’t know anything …’

‘I might know,’ Ivan growled.

They all looked back at him in surprise. ‘But you just said—’

‘I said I don’t do business with him. But I know Cracker, I know the shit he was into – some bad stuff,’ added Ivan. He gave his twisted smile again. ‘I would know if someone wanted him out of the way.’

‘Bad stuff … like what?’ Kennedy asked.

Ivan shrugged noncommittally. ‘Just, bad stuff.  But …’ he let the word hang, making sure he had their attention, ‘… his death?  It was nothing to do with his business.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘But he was ex-cop, yes?’

Chris nodded.

‘I hear not all cops are same.’ He smiled again. ‘You guys are cops.’  He looked back and forth between them. ‘You do good job mostly, but not always?’

Kennedy looked at him. ‘I don’t get you.’

Ivan leaned in, conspiratorial. ‘Cracker, he tell me one day, there were some peoples who asked him not to be such good cop ...’  He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, tapped it on the table.

‘You implying he was taking kickbacks?’ Chris looked across at Kennedy, who shrugged.

Ivan shook his head. ‘He never say.’ He sat back, looked from one detective to the other. ‘But if I was you? That’s where I would look. Not dirty pub in Sheriff Street …’ Ivan suddenly looked past Chris, and gave a slight shake of the head.

Chris followed his gaze – four large men stood by the door, watching carefully what was happening at the table. They were all well dressed, with dark looks that matched Ivan’s. At the big man’s gesture they seemed to relax.

‘So, you are busy men, yes? Busy being good cops,’ Ivan was suddenly jovial, but it was also a clear signal that the interview was over. He flicked his lighter open, and held it just in front of his cigarette. ‘Happy investigation, yes?’

Chris glanced at the four men, and back at Kennedy. ‘Right, happy investigation.’  He stood up, and his partner did the same. Then he held his card out to Ivan. ‘If you think of anything else that might be helpful …’

Ivan looked at it for a moment, then nodded to McCarthy, who took the card.

The detectives turned and walked slowly out of the pub, passing the four men on the way. They were clustered by the door, and moved only slightly as he and Kennedy passed, forcing them to weave between all four – close enough to see their hard eyes, smell the beer and cigarettes and sweat.

Not until they were outside the pub, the fresh wind on their faces, did Kennedy let out a deep sigh of relief.  ‘Jesus Christ, I haven’t felt like that since my first week on the beat,’ he gasped. ‘What kind of shit was Crowe into?’

But the real question was, Chris thought, was it the man’s dodgy dealings or his law enforcement past that had landed him in ice?

Reilly never felt comfortable going into bars by herself. Something about the way men leered, like there was this automatic assumption that a single woman in such a place was available. She tried to ignore the staring faces and looked around for Chris and Kennedy.  They were seated at a table in the corner, beers in hand, in animated discussion about something.

She had to admit she was a bit taken aback when earlier that evening she’d phoned Chris’s mobile to give him an update on yesterday’s sweep of the factory as well as her findings at the morgue, and he’d suggested she come down and meet him and Kennedy at a pub not far from the station.

It wouldn’t have been her choice of location for a work-related get-together, but they were all working crazy hours these days, and she figured it was better than going home to her empty flat. As it was, she didn’t get to experience enough of the local culture, and figured this as good an opportunity as any.to soak up the world-famous atmosphere of an Irish pub.

Reilly made her way through the crowd and slipped into an empty chair, shedding her coat as she sat. She looked back and forth between them.