Bad Catholics (22 page)

Jimmy hit him once, hard, in the stomach. The DC folded and went down on to his knees.

‘OK, Andy,' said Jimmy pulling his head up by his hair so they were looking at each other, ‘I won't threaten you, satisfied?'

He let go of the DC's hair. ‘I said, satisfied?'

Andy nodded.

‘There's going to be no phone calls. You're the only one apart from me who knows Denny Morris's name has been mentioned. I want this up and running before Denny gets told and puts the stopper on it. This time I'll nail the bastard.'

The DC got up, breathing hard.

Jimmy went back and carried on with the paperwork. It was about twenty minutes later when Detective Inspector Flavin came in.

‘Hello, Jimmy. Hello, Andy.'

Jimmy was surprised. ‘What brings you here?'

‘Just passing, Fred on the desk tells me you've brought a couple of kids in. What's up? Found them on the street, worried about their safety?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Contacted the parents to come and get them?'

‘A WPC's on it now.'

‘Good, then they should be home before too long. That's good, nice to see kids safe. Got anything to do, Andy?'

Andy looked at Jimmy. ‘Yeah, Tommy, I'll go and get on with it.'

He left the office. Tommy closed the door and turned to Jimmy. ‘No point in waiting, Jimmy. There'll not be any doctor or social worker, the kids will be taken home. The WPCs have been recalled. You should have taken advice first, once you knew this involved Denny.'

‘Who told you?'

‘Does it matter? That kid was shouting Denny's name all over the canteen, the whole nick knew five minutes after he got in there.'

Jimmy nodded. He should have banged the kid up instead of playing by the rules.

‘So, Jimmy?'

‘Tommy, those kids are on the game, at their age, for God's sake.'

‘People want it, so Denny provides it, girls, boys, what's the difference?'

‘Look, Tommy, the way Denny's running things now, it's no good. He takes too much in protection, the owners have to become thieves themselves so they can make the payments. He doesn't just do the ordinary trade in drugs, he makes his dealers work so hard they target fucking primary schools now. He runs girls so young that they're shagged-out slags by the time they're eighteen and now he's putting fucking little boys on the street. He's got to be stopped, Tommy. For all the real difference it would make, Denny might as well be the fucking Commissioner.'

Tommy didn't like it. Jimmy was swearing like a real copper and that was a very bad sign. He would have to reason with him. Coming the inspector and ordering him off wouldn't work when he was like this.

‘You're wrong, Jimmy, and I'll tell you why you're wrong. If we nail Denny then he still runs things from inside. Nothing would change except the coppers who sent him down would get it and maybe their families, and if Denny gets replaced it has to be by some bastard who's worse than he is. He took Lenny out because he was nastier and harder than Lenny. Replace Denny and where does that leave everybody?'

Jimmy tried not to think about it, but he knew Tommy was making some sort of sense.

Tommy, like everyone else, put Lenny Monk's recent demise down to Denny. No one except Jimmy knew about Bridie's involvement.

Tommy followed up his argument. He could see he was getting somewhere. Thank God he knew Jimmy as well as he did.

‘And we do good work, Jimmy. Not everybody out there is connected up to Denny Morris. We protect a lot of people, put away some nasty sods and keep the place safe most of the time for most of the people.'

‘Most of the time, Tommy?'

‘OK, some of the time. Look, don't try to change it unless you're sure you can fucking well mend it and not just make it worse.'

‘What about this one, the kids?'

‘It's out of my hands now. They're part of something Denny runs, more than just the street stuff, not just straight sex. I think he uses them for special clients and that puts the clients in his pocket. He probably films it or something.'

‘We could have got him this time, Tommy. One kid's stupid, with a big mouth, the other's scared. We'd have got the stories and medicals so not even Denny could knot it up.'

‘What you would have got would have been two dead kids. You could serve up Denny to a court on a silver plate with fucking watercress round him and he'd still beat the charge. He's too wired in. Too many people, important people, are in his pocket, or frightened, or whatever. Give it up, Jimmy, just give it up.'

So he gave it up. He stood and went to the door.

‘OK, Tommy, let them take the little fuckers home.'

‘That's right, Jimmy. Come on, let's go and have a pint at the club.'

At the club they joined Eddy Clarke, who was already sitting at a table.

‘Been busy, Tommy?'

‘Not really, this and that. You, Jimmy?'

‘No, Eddy, social work really, re-uniting lost kids with their parents.'

The conversation ran on and they were joined by another DS who Jimmy knew. They began to play cards, gin rummy. After about an hour Tommy Flavin stood up.

‘Got to go, lads, got a meet at half past.'

He left the table and walked to the club door. The door opened as he reached it and a very good-looking young girl walked in and looked around. She turned to Flavin.

‘Which one is Jimmy Costello?'

‘That table,' Tommy pointed. He couldn't swear but he got the impression she had nothing on under the coat. He would have liked to stay but the meet was important, this kids thing had to be sorted.

Late next morning Jimmy sat at his desk doing some paperwork on an arrest he had made the previous evening at the club where a drunken intruder had forced his way in and had had to be restrained. The phone rang, he answered it.

‘When?' He looked at his watch. ‘I can make it. Who will I meet? Why so careful? All right.'

He got up and left. When he reached The Rose and Crown he went to the bar.

‘Anyone in the back room?'

The barman looked up from the copy of
Punch
he was reading and shook his head.

‘Expecting anybody?'

The barman nodded.

‘So am I,' and Jimmy went into the back room.

A few minutes later another man walked into the bar. ‘Morning, Mr Forester.'

The man ignored the barman and went into the back room. Jimmy looked up and recognised the man, a chief inspector who worked out of a West-End nick.

‘Hello, Jimmy,' he sat down, ‘good of you to come. This is unofficial.'

‘If you say so.'

‘You went to visit the parents of those boys this morning, Jimmy. Why did you do that?'

‘To see if they were all right.'

‘It wasn't a nice thing to do, Jimmy, it made telephones ring in high places. Tommy Flavin said you were OK about this.'

‘I'm still OK … maybe.'

‘Maybe, Jimmy?'

‘One of those kids, the older one, his mum's on the game and he would probably be as well even if Denny hadn't put him there.'

‘So?'

‘The other one is only just eleven, he's still at primary school. As it happens, it's the school my kids went to. His parents are respectable people. He got pulled into all this by the older kid, he's only done one trick so far. He's scared now, scared of what the other kid says Denny will do if he pulls out and scared of his mum and dad finding out.'

‘What are you, a social worker?'

‘These people are from where I live, Mr Forester. If they still went to church, it would be the church I go to.'

‘So?'

‘I want the boy off the street and the parents don't get to know it ever happened.'

‘OK, and what do you give for this service?'

‘I leave it alone.'

‘No, Jimmy, you'll leave it alone whatever happens.'

‘Will I?'

‘Unless you want to go to prison.'

Jimmy looked at him.

‘You see, when that bloke you glassed last night comes up in court for assaulting a policeman, the coppers who were with you will give evidence, and the story they tell will be the story I choose. It could be the drunken intruder, the assault, the struggle, and his face being all cut up when he fell on the glass. Or it could be the truth, the girl you got sent, the bung you asked for, and the glassing when it turned nasty.'

Jimmy put his hands on the table and looked at his thumbs.

‘Denny doesn't let people go. These kids are on the game, that's it. Learn to live with it and get on with your own life.'

He got up. ‘That's how it is, Jimmy. You can't make any difference, except to yourself, of course.'

He left.

Jimmy sat for a moment, then he got up and went into the bar. ‘A whisky,' he said when the barman came, ‘and make it a double.'

He paid for his drink and went to a table. He sipped the whisky, then took a real drink, he never liked the taste of the stuff. He left the glass on the table and went back to the bar.

‘A pint of Fuller's.'

The barman pulled the pint, Jimmy paid and went back to his table. There was a man sitting at the next table reading a racing paper. He looked up at Jimmy then got up, came across, and sat down opposite him. Jimmy looked at him. He was feeling angry, maybe this man might let him do something about it. Jimmy poured the rest of the whisky into the beer and took a long drink. The man watched him and then spoke with a friendly smile.

‘That's a waste of good whisky, mate. If you need to do it, use gin or vodka.'

Jimmy didn't answer.

‘You're Jimmy Costello.'

Jimmy looked at him. He didn't know him and he couldn't hit him yet so he waited.

‘I've got a message for you, Jimmy.'

Jimmy still didn't speak. It all depended on the message. If it was from Denny Morris he'd put the man in hospital.

‘I was told to say thank you and the favour will be returned when you want it.'

The man's accent was not London. Midlands, Birmingham, maybe. Certainly not Scottish. It wasn't what Jimmy was expecting.

‘I don't know what I'm being thanked for and I don't take favours.'

‘Of course, but maybe you'll change your mind one day. The people I know have long memories and they never forget a favour, or anything else.'

Was that a threat? Jimmy wasn't sure. The man went back to his table and resumed his perusal of his racing paper. Jimmy watched him for a moment then got up and left the pub.

At the station the desk sergeant called to him as he came in.

‘They found a bomb up West, Jimmy. Did you hear about it?'

Jimmy shook his head.

‘It didn't go off but fucking hell, if it had! I'd like to spend half an hour in a cell with one of those bastards.'

Jimmy nodded. ‘I know what you mean, Fred. I know just how you feel.'

That night Father Liam was arrested and in raids across Central London three members of an IRA bomb cell were also arrested and explosives and weapons found in two lock-up garages. They found no weapons or explosives in the priest's house but there were traces which showed explosives had been stored there. Father Liam was taken away by the police under the supervision of Special Branch officers. A priest nobody knew said the Masses on Sunday. He asked for their prayers for Father Liam, especially if he was guilty of the dreadful charges against him. He also asked their prayers for all the victims of terrorist violence and also their prayers that the men of violence would seek peaceful ways of gaining their ends. He didn't stand outside the church and nobody stayed around to chat that day.

Two weeks later a bomb did go off. The coded warning didn't give enough time and the toll of dead and injured was given out on the news.

What a fucking world, thought Jimmy. He thought about the two kids in the doorway and the man saying thank you in the pub and he thought, God forgive me for my part in making sure that it all stays that way.

TEN

London, February 1995

The Underground train was travelling north. Jimmy and Sister Philomena had spent most of the journey with their own thoughts. Philomena looked around her. There was no one within hearing distance.

‘Why are you going to see Mr Amhurst, Jimmy?'

‘If the two killings are connected, his money is the only connection. If I can make that connection, I'll know where you stand.'

Philomena thought for a moment then said, ‘You think I'm involved or I might be in danger?'

Jimmy nodded.

‘Not nice either way, is it?'

Jimmy shook his head.

‘Then I don't think I can let you ask Mr Amhurst the kind of questions you want to ask.'

‘Then I'll just listen. If he wants to talk, you let him. I'll just listen.'

‘If he wants to, Jimmy, but he's just lost his wife. It's what he wants and feels that matters today, not what we want.'

They left the Tube and walked out of the station into a leafy suburb. Many of the houses were mock-Tudor, mock-Georgian, or just mock, but if the architecture was mock the air of money was real enough. To live in this part of London you had to be seriously well-off.

To Jimmy's surprise, Philomena asked him to phone for a taxi. Jimmy went to the phone box outside the station. As he had expected, there were a couple of cards for taxi firms stuck above the phone. He made a call. About five minutes later a cab pulled up. Philomena gave the driver the address and they got in.

They arrived at a big detached house and walked up the long gravel drive. The front door was opened by an elderly man.

‘Welcome, Sister, please come in,' Mr Amhurst looked at Jimmy, ‘both of you.'

‘This is Mr Costello,' said Philomena, going into the hall, ‘he works with us. He knew Lucy.'

Mr Amhurst and Jimmy shook hands in that cold, formal manner which in England passes for a greeting. ‘Thank you, Mr Costello, and welcome.' He stood for a second and then said, doubtfully, ‘Shall we go in the living room? Would you like tea … or something else? I'm afraid I'm not very …'