Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

I tapped my foot on the floor. I was bristling with anger and impatience. I had to deal with O’Neill right now while my blood was up. I had to know why he had been trying to kill me ever since I had arrived in this fucking country, and I had to put a bloody stop to it. Three attacks in one day: that was miles better than even Bridget’s record. And holy mother of God, now they’d even taken to sinking ships in order to nail me. What would be next? Aerial bombing? Anthrax?

Aye, well, we’d see O’Neill about that.

But there was another reason for seeing him too.

Something that had been nagging me since I’d been in the Rat’s Nest, and had become apparent on the Ginger Bap.

Something Seamus Deasey had said. Outside the pub, when he had told me Barry’s name and the fact he lived on a boat on the Lagan, Seamus had slipped in a boast that having Barry’s name and address wouldn’t do me any good. At the time I hadn’t even considered it, but now it seemed that Seamus had known that Barry was already dead. Seamus knew that Barry had been murdered.

How?

Unless he was the all comers’ lying champion of Sicily five years in a row, I didn’t think he was stroking me. When I’d looked in Seamus’s eyes, he seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of the kidnap. I think the word kidnap even surprised him: he thought wee Siobhan was still missing. And he was genuinely shocked when I’d suggested that one of his boys might be involved.

I could be wrong, though. He could be in it up to his eyeballs and I might have missed the one chance to break the case wide open. Would have been easy: kidnap Seamus, take him to a wee hidey-hole, and get cracking with my experimental interrogation techniques. But nah, even then I don’t think he would have fessed up to knowing anything about Siobhan Callaghan.

So where did that leave things?

It meant Seamus didn’t know why Barry had been killed, but he knew that he was dead. And thinking back, I’m no crime-scene expert but I don’t think Barry’s corpse had been disturbed. Donald hadn’t seen anyone go on board the Ginger Bap and that lock looked untouched since the murderers had jury-rigged it.

Since no one had messed with the scene, the only way Seamus could have known about Barry’s murder was if something had leaked out about it, or he had heard some word on the street, or perhaps the murderer had actually asked for Seamus’s permission to kill his boy. If he’d been a Belfast assassin, he probably would have had to do that. You don’t go around whacking members of other people’s crews, be they capo, soldier, or lowly drug dealer, without getting the ok from on high. ’Course, if the hit men were from abroad, London or Dublin, say, then it wouldn’t matter, but a Belfast-based assassin would have had to get a permission slip. Oh, you’d maybe explain that Barry had raped your sister or insulted your granny or some such shite like that. You’d give Seamus a couple of grand blood money and he’d be happy enough.

It was pure speculation. But the more I thought about it, the more I was reasonably certain that Seamus had not only known that Barry was dead but that he had a fair idea who’d been involved in it. Following my little stunt in the Rat’s Nest, I wouldn’t be able to get within a million miles of Seamus, but Body O’Neill was one floor above me. One minute up the stairs. For if Body O’Neill was the commander of the IRA in Belfast, it meant he was Seamus Deasey’s superior. O’Neill could order Seamus to tell me what he knew about young Barry. All it would take would be a sufficiently persuasive argument to convince O’Neill of the justice of my cause.

Maybe a Belfast six-pack would do the trick.

But certainly he could solve a lot of the questions that were troubling me. And I was damn well going to get the information I bloody needed about the hits on me and everything else I wanted to know.

I looked at the concierge.

“She’s taking her time, isn’t she?”

He nodded awkwardly.

“Know much about the library?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said with the sinking feeling that he was going to tell me.

“When the Luftwaffe bombed Belfast in ’42, the military target was the docks and the shipyard but Göring instructed several Heinkel 111s to hit cultural and civic targets, and among those were the city hall and the Linen Hall Library.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Thousands died but the incident doesn’t even merit a mention in most histories of World War-”

“Shocking.”

“And did you further know-”

I had to interrupt.

“Look, I’m sorry to be rude, but you wouldn’t mind paging Miss Plum again, would you?”

He paged her.

“Miss Plum, that gentleman is in quite a rush to get in,” he said into the speakerphone.

“It’s not André with the lobsters, is it?” Miss Plum’s voice replied.

The concierge looked at me.

“You’re not André with the lobsters, are you?”

My knuckles whitened.

“Do you see any lobsters?”

“It’s not André, Miss Plum,” the concierge said.

“But it is very urgent,” I said into the intercom.

“I’ll be right down,” she said.

“Great.”

Eventually, after I’d endured more tedious tales of the library’s fascinating history, Miss Plum’s legs appeared at the top of the stairs.

She opened the glass door and came out to meet me.

A chubby, redfaced Kate Winslet type, brown eyes, tight skirt, pert, snarky mouth.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, look, I have an urgent message for a Mr. O’Neill upstairs.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, do you know Mr. O’Neill? Is he here today?”

“He’s here,” she said.

“Well, I wonder if you might let me up to see him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. You’ll have to join the library to get in, at the very least you’ll have to get a temporary card. Oh, don’t get so worried. You just have to fill out a few forms, provide proof of residence,” she said, looking with displeasure at the burnt fiberglass that had stuck to my leather jacket.

“Please, I’m in a big rush, I don’t have time for forms, I really just need to see him,” I said. I didn’t have time for bloody paperwork, and it was years since I could produce any proof of Belfast residence.

“I’m sorry, it’s the policy, this is a very select institution,” Miss Plum said with a winning smile.

She was a charming girl and in general I avoid killing women, but I was right on the goddamn edge here.

“Ok, look, Miss Plum, what’s your first name?”

“Jane,” she said with a tiny sniff of suspicion.

“Look, Jane, first let me say I completely understand the policy. Very sensible, keep out the riffraff. Second of all, let me compliment you on your style, appearance, and professionalism. Has anyone ever told you that you resemble a thin Kate Winslet? You have an extraordinary skin tone. If you ever want a job with the Olay people, look me up, my cousin’s the vice president. But this is an emergency. Mr. O’Neill’s mother is dying. He’s turned off his cell phone and I just need to see him, to let him know, so he can rush to her side for the final moments. The priest has already read the last rites, we all believe she’ll pass within the hour.”

“His mother?” Jane said, shocked.

“Yes, his poor wee mother,” I said, staring off into the middle distance.

“Bloody hell, she must be over a hundred,” the concierge said.

“O’Neill’s an elderly gentleman then, is he?” I thought but some-how also said aloud.

“Oh aye, he’s well into his seventies,” Jane said.

“Well, I’m just the messenger,” I said, a bit thrown.

“His poor old ma, she’s probably in the Guinness Book of Records or something,” the concierge mused.