Sabbathman (21 page)

Annie had gone back to the file. ‘How about the others?’ she said. ‘The other names in here?’

‘The Fraud Squad are checking them out, but they don’t stack up.’

‘And O’Keefe? Are we saying he’s active? Or a sympathiser? Or what?’

Cousins hesitated a moment, looking at her. ‘You’re very blunt, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Annie nodded. ‘I find it pays in the end. Especially in this building.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Yes.’ Annie smiled. ‘I expect you can. So,’ she tapped the file, ‘tell me about O’Keefe.’

‘He’s a businessman. Longford born and bred. The town’s rock solid Fianna Fail and he’s one of the biggest wheels. Make of that what you will.’

The phone rang again and Cousins reached back, lifting the receiver, listening, his eyes still on Annie. Annie ignored him, thinking about Desmond O’Keefe. Fianna Fail was the party of Eamonn de Valera, the guardians of the republican flame. They’d spent most of the last decade in office and they were pledged, one day, to extending Dublin’s rule to the Six Counties in the north. Deep down, they’d always hated the Brits, and getting screwed by the likes of Derek Bairstow would – for O’Keefe – be yet more evidence of English treachery.

Cousins put the phone down.

‘You think someone’s doing O’Keefe a favour,’ she asked, ‘by killing Bairstow? Or do you think he’s rather more involved than that?’

Cousins shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘That’s why I asked you over. That’s why I gave you the file. I think there’s a link there.
That’s my guess. I think O’Keefe had something to do with Bairstow’s little accident. But how, or what, I don’t know.’

‘You want me to go to Ireland?’

‘No, Birmingham.’

‘Birmingham?’ Annie gazed at him. ‘Why Birmingham?’

‘We have a guy up there. He’s just back from Longford. We put him in a couple of weeks back, after they slotted Bairstow. You probably know him already, by reputation at least.’ He paused. ‘Eddie McCreadie.’

‘Fat Eddie?’

‘Yes.’ He yawned. ‘He knows the form, the names, the family tree. If there’s anything obvious on the ground over there, he’ll have found it. He came back last night. I talked to him on the phone and he knows you’re coming.’ He hesitated. ‘He likes meets at the International Airport. The cops are armed up there and I think it makes him feel happier. There’s a restaurant on the first floor. Half right at the top of the escalator. I’ve said you’ll buy him supper.’

He produced a small black and white photo and gave it to Annie. It showed a cheerful middle-aged man in a polo neck sweater. He had a thick moustache and not much hair. Annie had never met him in person but recognised the face from the files. Fat Eddie. Once acting-quartermaster with the Belfast Brigade. Now enjoying an early retirement, courtesy of the relocation experts at the Field Research Unit. The man you go to for a little background, those times when you want to test a theory, or cross-check a fact or a face.

Cousins was on his feet again. ‘The moustache has come off,’ he said, ‘but he tells me the rest looks the same. Give or take a stone or two.’

Annie nodded, still looking at the photo. ‘I’m surprised he went,’ she said. ‘I thought he was past all that.’

‘He is.’

‘So what did it take?’

‘A word in his ear. Plus a false name.’ He nodded at the photo. ‘Meet Sean McTiernan.’

‘Am I supposed to use that name?’

‘Up to you. Makes no odds.’

Annie looked at him a moment, marvelling at how easy it was when you were sat behind a desk. Then she slipped the photo into her bag. ‘May I?’ she said, gesturing at the file.

‘Of course.’ Cousins nodded at the pile on his desk. ‘I’ve got plenty.’

‘Are they all the same? Dupes?’

‘Yes. As it happens.’

Annie bent for her bag, wondering what on earth Cousins was doing with so many copies of the same file. Then she stood up, smoothing her dress, aware of Cousins’ eyes on her body, a frank appraisal. Cards on the table, she thought. Time to get one or two things straight.

‘I’m a little vague,’ she said carefully, ‘about the line of command here.’

‘Say again?’

‘You and me. Where everything fits.’ Annie smiled. ‘Are you controller now? Have you taken over? Only they normally announce that kind of thing. Protocol, and so forth.’

Cousins looked briefly pained. Like many men, she detected a reluctance to deal with simple truths. He sat back in his chair, reaching for a pencil, tapping it lightly against the knuckles of his other hand.

‘We’ve set up a task force,’ he said, ‘for the duration of this business. As you know, we have a special desk. Ring-fenced monies. Priority call on most facilities. You’ll have been briefed on all that.’

‘Of course.’

‘Nominally, Francis Wren would be in charge. As Controller of ‘T’ Branch, that would make sense. He would be the line to the Directorate.’

‘But?’

‘There is no Francis Wren.’

‘Meaning?’

‘His position is vacant.’ He smiled. ‘Pending developments.’

‘I see. So all this … the Sabbathman operation …’

Cousins nodded, watching her carefully again. ‘Mine,’ he agreed, ‘as of yesterday.’

‘And me?’

‘You, too, I’m afraid. Until we slot the bugger.’ He paused. ‘I’m surprised Wren didn’t mention it. Maybe he had other things on his mind. Still, if you don’t object …’

‘Not at all, of course not, I just’ – Annie shrugged – ‘wanted to know, that’s all.’

Annie shouldered her bag and turned for the door. She was about to open it when Cousins called her back.

‘This liaison business,’ he said casually. ‘You and your Plod friend.’

‘Alan Kingdom?’

‘Yes. Who’s idea was that?’

‘Wren’s, as far as I know. I happened to fit the bill. Alan was the Yard’s contribution. After my appointment.’

Cousins said nothing for a moment. The sunshine had reached Euston now, pouring in through the big plate-glass window, rimming his head in gold, casting his face into shadow. Annie wasn’t sure but she thought he might be smiling.

‘I’ve cancelled the arrangement,’ he said at length. ‘I thought it might make things easier for you.’

Annie hesitated, one hand still on the door handle. Cousins’ use of innuendo was masterful. She thought she knew what he was saying but she was by no means sure so she decided to play it straight.

‘He’ll be pleased,’ she said lightly. ‘He’s got troubles at home.’

Cousins was smiling now. Definitely. ‘The wife?’

‘His father. He has Alzheimer’s. I think there’s a problem with getting him looked after.’ Annie paused, offering a smile of her own. ‘And he’s divorced, by the way, in case you’d got the wrong idea.’

Annie took a late afternoon train to Birmingham. At Cousins’ suggestion, she’d been back to the flat and packed an overnight bag. From the station at the international airport, a monorail bridged the half-mile to the passenger terminal, and Annie found the restaurant up on the first floor, exactly as Cousins had described. There were a dozen or so tables, and a scattering of
passengers bent over cups of tea. Of Eddie McCreadie, there was no sign.

Annie glanced at her watch and fetched a pot of coffee from the counter. A table near the back of the eating area offered a good view of the approach from the escalator, and she settled down to wait. On the train, she’d read through the rest of the Derek Bairstow file, trying to test Hugh Cousins’ thesis against the known facts. The Fraud Squad file was exhaustive and it was plain that Bairstow had been under surveillance for the best part of a year. In all, according to bank statements recovered from his house after his death, he’d salted away more than £200,000 from a variety of contracts. In every case, the money had come from firms to whom he’d awarded PSA contracts, and these monies had been paid directly into a company account at the Zurich bank. The company, Nordvolk, had been held by Bairstow’s wife in her maiden name, and she and Bairstow had made regular visits to Zurich to draw cash from the account.

Attached to the file had been a series of photographs. They’d included shots of Bairstow himself, both dead and alive, and a nicely framed view of his house, a modest semi at the cheaper end of Jesmond. Looking at the photo, Annie had wondered quite how the investigation had begun – there were no obvious signs of wealth – but reading on, she’d found a note of an interview filed by a detective called Gosling. The note, nearly a year old, appeared to have initiated the entire inquiry. Gosling had been phoned by the managing director of a marine engineering company in Aberdeen. The firm had tendered for a construction project out on the Northumberland coast and had lost. Suspecting foul play, the managing director had unearthed some evidence of his own, and handed it over. By itself, this evidence wasn’t enough to secure a conviction but a year later the Fraud Squad were on the point of closing the trap. Pinned to the interview note was a photocopy of a letter from the same managing director. The letter was brisk. Six months after the interview, he was saying, nothing had been done. Bairstow wasn’t only still working for the PSA, he’d actually been promoted. The signs, the managing director warned in the letter, were ominous. If a bent civil servant got promoted, where did the corruption end?

Annie had been amused by the tone of voice behind the terse interrogatives. She’d met men like this before – self-righteous, shrill, angry – and she wondered now whether O’Keefe came from the same mould. Had he written letters? Or phoned DC Gosling? Or had Cousins reached for his hi-lighter for some other reason? Because of the man’s nationality? And because he fitted so neatly into the conspiracy they were all labouring to understand?

Annie shook her head, none the wiser, and when Fat Eddie finally turned up, nearly an hour later, she was no closer to an answer. He was a huge man, much bigger than the photo suggested, in ill-fitting brown trousers and a green Pringle sweater. He had a long, heavy jaw and a wary smile. Now, he sat behind a small mountain of pasta, winding spaghetti round his fork. The second bottle of Chianti was nearly empty, though Annie’s glass was barely touched.

‘So who briefed you?’ she said. ‘Who asked you to go?’

‘Told me. Told me to go.’

‘OK.’ Annie conceded the point, ‘So who was that?’

‘Yer man down there.’

‘Who?’

‘Tall fella. Young looking. Had that way about him. You know what I’m saying? Nice enough now, but you wouldn’t want to argue.’

Annie smiled, nodding. Hugh Cousins exactly. ‘And you spent a fortnight there? In Longford?’

‘Yes. I knew there were jobs going, you know, shite work, because he’d told me. I was staying at a grand little place out on the Newtown road there. I took the bus every morning.’ He reached for the remains of the Chianti. ‘Shite work.’

‘Any faces you knew?’

‘None. Every man a stranger. Every woman, too.’

‘And the crack? In the evening?’

‘Horses and politics and Gaelic football.’ He frowned. ‘And don’t think I didn’t put myself around. Because I did.’

‘But nothing?’

‘No. And no surprise, either. I told yer man before I went. I told him. Save your money, I said, there’s no way, not in that town.’

‘You’d been there before?’

‘No, but that’s not the point. Jeez now, Longford, there’s a place the Irish are proud of. They’ve got jobs, prospects, the place works. The last thing those fellas need are us lunatics from the north. It’s the same you’ll find anywhere else there’s a half-decent life. People down south don’t want anything to do with the Provos. Especially not in a place like Longford.’

‘And O’Keefe?’

‘Least of all O’Keefe. Dessie’s Mr Fianna Fail. He’s mainstream. He’s been at it most of his life and now they’re in power again. They’re running the place. Now why would he want to spoil any of that?’

He reached for a paper napkin and wiped his mouth. He had huge hands, and Annie watched him swallow the last of the wine, wondering about the wisdom of ordering another bottle. She’d rarely seen anyone so nervous. He’d refused even to sit down until they’d changed places. He’d said he needed to keep an eye on things. Looking at the wall gave him indigestion.

Now he was eyeing the clock beside the departures board.

‘If that’s all …’ he began.

Annie reached out, restraining him. ‘O’Keefe,’ she said again. ‘I need to know how sure you are. You know how the story goes?’

Eddie shook his head with such violence that his whole face wobbled. ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘and if it’s all the same to you, I–’

‘Listen,’ Annie’s hand was still on his arm, ‘O’Keefe’s been crossed in business. Man here on the mainland. It’s cost him a lot of money. He asks his republican friends to teach the man a lesson. They do just that.’

‘How?’

‘By killing him.’

‘How?’

‘With a knife. At a football match.’

Eddie stared at her. His face, already red, had purpled. ‘Provos?’ he said. ‘A knife? At a
football match?
’

‘Yes.’

Eddie began to rock with laughter, the whole table shaking above his massive knees.

Annie steadied the empty bottle. ‘Something I said?’ she inquired. ‘Something you find amusing?’

Annie phoned Cousins from a call-box half an hour later. She’d just escorted Fat Eddie back to his car, waving goodbye as he bumped away towards the pay booth. One of his back lights didn’t work and she wondered how he’d make out if they stopped him on the way home. Even a frame that big couldn’t hide two bottles of Chianti.

‘Now, she bent to the phone. Cousins had told her he’d be waiting for her call. When his direct line didn’t answer, she phoned the main switchboard, asking for him by name. The telephonist put the call through at once but the voice that answered, to Annie’s surprise, belonged to Wren.

‘You’re after our new friend,’ he said at once.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’m holding the fort.’ he paused. ‘He’s gone down to Wales. He wants you to join him there.’

‘Where?’

‘Fishguard. You’ve to go to the customs people in the ferry port. They’ll know where he is.’

‘Why?’ Annie said, ‘What’s happened?’

There was a brief silence at the other end. Then Wren was back again, chuckling softly to himself.