Adrian McKinty - The Cold Cold Ground

“What was at Scavanni’s house?” I asked scribbling in my notebook.

He opened his mouth, closed it, looked away.

“There’s more, come on, Walter, out with it.”

“No. There’s not much more. That same night, one of the higher-ups phoned looking for Tommy — about an hour after he left home — and I told him what Tommy had said.”

“What do you mean ‘higher-up’?”

“One of the big bosses. But you won’t be getting his name from me, ever.”

“Do you mean one of the big bosses in the IRA?”

“Yes.”

“How big?”

“The top. The very top. That’s all I’m going to say.”

I looked at Crabbie. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing either.

“Ok, Walter, so you told this big boss what exactly?”

“That Tommy had gone out already. That he was going to see Billy White and Freddie Scavanni.”

I wrote it down. “And then what happened?”

“Well, Tommy didn’t come back and the bosses called again at midnight looking for him and I said I hadn’t seen him yet. A lot of times Tommy will do an all-nighter for the boys so I wasn’t that worried. But then the bosses starting calling again in the morning and all that afternoon. And I began to get really concerned, and then that evening a couple of thugs wearing balaclavas knocked at my door and they took me away for the third degree …”

He hesitated and then stopped speaking as if he had just caught himself doing something terribly wrong. “Informer” has always been a poisonous word in Ireland and these days “informer” was anyone who so much as opened their mouth in the presence of a policeman.

“Ok, Sergeant Duffy, that’s it. You know what I know. Please leave and please don’t ever come back,” Walter said wearily.

He pushed me out onto the porch.

“Wait, a minute, Walter, I-”

Before I could get another word out he shut the door.

I stood there for a moment and then turned to Crabbie. “Either of those names ring a bell?”

“Don’t know who Freddie Scavanni is but Billy White is a Prod paramilitary in Newtownabbey. UVF divisional commander for East Antrim.”

“Why would an IRA man be going to see a UVF divisional commander?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“Drugs?”

“Aye, dividing up territory for drugs, arranging truces, sorting out territory for protection rackets, that kind of thing. But the thing is, Sean, the question we have to ask ourselves, is why Billy White is seeing some low-ranking IRA guy?”

“And we know the answer, don’t we? Because Tommy Little isn’t some low-ranking IRA guy at all, is he?”

“Nope. I reckon he isn’t,” Crabbie agreed.

We drove back to Carrick station and while Crabbie filled in Matty I looked up the file on Billy White:

Born 1947, Belfast. Smart kid. Methodist College. 10 O-Levels. 2 A-levels. 1966-71 moves to Rhodesia where he joins the police. 1971 expelled from Rhodesia for unspecified reasons. 1972 arrested for receiving stolen goods in London. ’72-’74 Her Majesty’s Pleasure in various English Stretches. ‘74 returns to Belfast. Joins UVF, arrested for attempted murder. Witness disappears. Never arrested again. Suspected hitman, suspected bagman, suspected narco distributer. Current UVF rank: senior commander and quartermaster.

The file didn’t say what Billy did now for the UVF but if he was a liaison officer with other paramilitary groups it would make him almost untouchable.

I looked up the file on Freddie Scavanni:

Born 1948, Ravenna, Italy. Relocated to Cork 1950 and to Belfast 1951. Father one of the many Italian immigrants who came to Ireland just after the war. Educated on a scholarship at the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. 12 O-Levels. 3 A-Levels. Another smart kid. Interned for IRA membership 1972 and released in 1973. BA in journalism from Queen’s University Belfast 1976. Currently Sinn Fein press officer. Current IRA rank: unknown.

I closed both files and put them on my desk.

I called up Sinn Fein HQ and asked to speak to Scavanni but they told me to take a long, spiritually fulfilling walk into the nearest peat bog.

“Oi, Crabbie, remember when the chief said that it was great that we had a nice wee normal murder case for once that didn’t involve the paramilitaries or have a sectarian angle?”

“Yeah,” he said sourly, looking at his watch.

“I’m not sure we have that any more.”

I rubber-banded the files on Scavanni and White and chucked them over to him. He read them and whistled.

It was five o’clock. “Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day, mate,” I said. “You better go home.”

“Busier than today?” he asked.

“Oh aye. We’re going to interview Lucy Moore’s ma and da and her husband in the Maze to close that investigation and then we’re going to have to interview our two new best friends: Freddie and Billy.”

“I’ll be late in, Sean. I have to go to Derry tomorrow for me Uncle Tom’s funeral,” Crabbie said.

“All right then, it’ll be a busy day for Matty.”

“I’ll write those names up on the scoresheet.”

Crabbie wrote FREDDIE SCAVANNI and BILLY WHITE on the whiteboard.

He put on his coat. “Is it really ok if I go on home?”

“Aye.”

“What about me?” Matty asked.

“Jesus, you’re here? Where are you?”

“Lying on the floor by the radiator.”

“Why?”

“My back’s killing me. I must have done something to it. I could barely reel in that ten-pounder yesterday. I should be off on sick leave.”

“No sick leave! Did you find out where the homosexuals go to do their business?”

“No.”

“Did you find where Lucy Moore’s been hiding since Christmas?”

“No.”

“Did you find out if there was a link between Tommy Little and Andrew Young?”

“No.”

“Did you find out what Tommy Little really did for a living?”

“No.”

“Brilliant. All right, you can go home too.”

Matty grinned and thanked me. When they were both gone, I turned on the portable TV to catch the Six O’Clock Northern Ireland News. Our story was only the fifth lead, behind a bus bombing, the Royal Wedding, the hunger strikes and an attack on an army helicopter: Two homosexual men had been shot in possibly related incidents. The BBC, in their wisdom, interviewed Belfast City Councillor George Seawright of the DUP, who, as a responsible elected representative called homosexuals an “abomination under God deserving of the very worst torments of hell”.

I turned down the sound and called Special Branch and asked them to send me their latest intel files on the IRA High Command and Army Council. Then I called the Northern Ireland Prison Service to ask how you went about interviewing a prisoner on hunger strike.

Until Heather Fitzgerald’s shift ended I killed some time working up my psych profile of the killer, but there wasn’t a whole lot to go on. Male 25–50. Intelligent. Into classical music. Into mythology. Knowledge of Greek? That didn’t really narrow it down as I’d learned Latin and Greek as did most kids who went to Catholic school or a Proddy Grammar.

At seven o’clock Heather and I walked to the Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant on North Street. We were the only customers.

She had changed into her civvies: a black sweater, long brown skirt and short-heeled boots. She’d kept her end up and she looked lovely.

I ordered half a dozen things off the menu and instead of any of that they just brought us what they’d already made. The waiter grew strangely evasive when I asked for details so I didn’t press him. She pecked at her food like a bird, eating practically nothing. I hadn’t had a proper meal in days and I scarfed what she left.