Matt McGuire - Dark Dawn

‘I thought for a second this might be heaven,’ O’Neill said. ‘Until I saw your ugly mug.’

‘I wouldn’t count on either of us getting there,’ Ward replied.

O’Neill smiled and a stab of pain hit along the side of his jaw. He spoke again, more quietly than before.

‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘A day.’

‘Walczak?’

‘We got him.’

O’Neill felt himself relax.

‘I got there just as you blacked out.’

‘I was beginning to think you’d stopped for a fag or something.’

Ward laughed softly. ‘You and your frigging running.’

He sat down again, pulling his chair closer to the bed.

‘He’s some piece of work, that Walczak. He’s Polish. Ex-Special Forces. You should have seen him in the interview room. He laughed at the idea of jail. “Fucking police. You think I give a fuck about you and your prison?” After that he stone-walled us. Just sat there. Arms folded.’

O’Neill lay on the bed, wishing he’d been there, just to be in the room, to be asking the questions, even if Walczak didn’t answer a single one. They had the footprint. They had the DNA. They had the passports.

‘Who was he working with?’

‘He’s not going to give anyone up. He’ll do his time. He didn’t even blink at the prospect of life. Oh, and the nightclub — Mint? You’re not going to believe who owns that building.’

O’Neill guessed. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Yeah. That’s right. Spender’s got that whole block. We can’t tell how involved he is. He might just be a man with a big building. I don’t think so. But that’s as far as we can go with him for the time being.’

‘What about the black book he found — his son’s? The one with all the phone numbers?’

‘Who knows what he did with it? Maybe he burned it.’

O’Neill tried to adjust himself in the bed, wincing as a fresh stab of pain hit his shoulder. He breathed in through his teeth.

‘What about Burke and his brother?’

‘They were definitely up to something. Possibly to do with Laganview. Burke’s phone record shows they talked eight times the weekend the kid was killed. We don’t have anything tying them directly to the body though.’

Despite the pain and the cloud of medication, O’Neill could feel the weight starting to lift from him. Sure, there were loose ends. There always were. They’d got someone though. It was a victory. It meant something.

‘So what’s my diagnosis then?’ O’Neill asked.

‘Dislocated shoulder. Fractured skull. You took a few digs to the head so you’re not as pretty as you once were. Doctor says it’s nothing a bit of time won’t fix.’

‘You’ll need to apologize to Wilson. I don’t think I’m going to make my Review Board at this rate.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Ward said. ‘Walczak’s in bracelets. Laganview’s over. You’re going to be keeping your stripes. I’ll tell you better than that — there’s a permanent Sergeant’s post coming up in March and your name’s already been pencilled in.’

O’Neill lifted his eyebrows, raising three fingers on his left hand, thinking about tapping his shoulder. He winced halfway through the movement and brought his hand back down.

‘Detective Sergeant O’Neill,’ Ward said. ‘Yeah. I always thought it suited you.’

O’Neill gave a faint smile. The light in the room was beginning to sting his eyes. He put his head back and closed them.

He heard the door open and someone else walk in. A nurse, possibly the doctor.

He looked up to see Sam Jennings standing at the door, a look of worry on her face. Jennings looked at the DI. She knew who Ward was, but she was new to Musgrave Street, and in uniform. She wouldn’t be on his radar.

Ward stood up, raising his eyebrows at O’Neill. ‘I’ve got some paperwork needs doing. I’ll leave you both to it.’

As he turned to walk out of the room, Sam stood back.

‘Jennings,’ Ward said, passing the WPC.

‘Sir,’ she replied, hiding a tinge of embarrassment. She stepped forward to the bed and put her hand against O’Neill’s face.

‘You should see the state of the other guy,’ O’Neill said.

‘I did. Funnily enough, there wasn’t a mark on him.’

‘Yeah. So they keep telling me.’

Molloy felt as if he was back at school, sitting in the headmaster’s office, about to get the caning of his life.

It was eleven in the morning and The George hadn’t opened. He sat in a booth along the back wall. Gerry McCann was on a bar stool smoking, a deep frown across his forehead. He hadn’t spoken since walking in, and had ignored Molloy. Three dirty pint glasses sat on the bar next to him — leftovers from the previous night. Molloy could hear McCann breathing, each exhale angrier than the one before. He looked as if he was trying to suck the life out of his cigarette.

Molloy didn’t speak. This was a ‘wait till you’re spoken to’ moment. Most definitely. There were no lights on in The George and the grey winter sky filtered through the window at the far end of the bar. McCann was fuming, surrounded by smoke. He looked as if he wanted to hurt someone.

‘Where’s Joe Lynch?’ He spoke without looking at Molloy.

‘Eh, we’ve had people watching the house, walking round town, in and out-’

McCann repeated the question, slowly with emphasis.

‘Where — the fuck — is Joe Lynch?’

‘We don’t know.’

A pint glass flew through the air, smashing above Molloy’s head and showering him in glass.

In Cultra, Karen Spender stood on the patio looking down the lawn and out over Belfast Lough. She was smoking again. Two days ago she had bought her first packet in eight years. It was the phone call to Manchester that did it.

She’d hired a private investigator. Wanted him to find Phillip. He had quoted her his daily rate, plus expenses. Who cared how much it cost? She needed to know — even if it was as bad as she imagined. Every time the phone went, she jumped three feet in the air. At least that’s what it felt like. She had got into the habit of cutting people short. She couldn’t talk to them. Not now.

She hadn’t told Zara. Hadn’t told William either. This was for her.

William Spender saw the smoke drift past his office window. She was at it again. That frigging detective and his questions.

Spender was going over the profit projections for Laganview. They were back on schedule with the build. They’d pulled in more labour. These Eastern Europeans were grafters, all right. Would work their fingers to the bone and never complain. They’d sold six more apartments in the last week, four of them on the back of chatting to people at the awards dinner. No matter what anyone said, there was money to be made in this town.

Out the back Karen Spender took a last drag of her cigarette. She stubbed it out on an ashtray on the patio table. The rain had made a small puddle in the glass bowl, mixing with the ash and old fag ends. She shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms before turning back inside.

Michael Burke opened the doors at the back of the white Transit. It had taken him two hours to get to Dublin, plus another hour trying to find the place. He was at a building site for a new hotel on the south side. It was going to be a high-end gig, catering for pop stars and businessmen. The kind of place where people didn’t blink at 500 euros a night and would boast about having stayed there.

Paddy Hewson was in his early thirties. He wore a suit, tucked into a pair of brown construction boots. He was the principal engineer or architect or something. He looked at the three large drums of copper. They were fifteen hundred quid a pop from any wholesaler. It had been a walk in the park getting them out of Laganview. Spender knew about it. He was taking 50 per cent and then claiming the whole lot back again on insurance. Six grand a week. This was a test run and they planned to go for more, next time around. The site had a hundred grand’s worth of copper on it. Tony had knocked the cameras out the week before and they had used his keys to get in on the Saturday night. The kid getting killed was unlucky, but it meant no one else at Laganview had noticed the copper was missing.