Adrian McKinty - I Hear the Sirens in the Street

McCrabban comes back downstairs.

He shakes his head.

Brennan and Sergeant Burke appear from wherever they’ve been. Mrs McFarlane offers to make them tea. Brennan accepts. Sergeant Burke goes outside to have a smoke.

I let McCrabban ask McFarlane all the questions I have already attempted in order to ascertain if there are any inconsistencies.

There are none.

We drink our teas and assume that Edwardian Belfast fake politeness that coats this city like poison gas. Matty finally comes down with his fingerprint books and forensic samples.

“Are you all done, mate?”

“Aye,” he says. He’s got something in his hand. He shows it to me. It’s from the pantry. A Chicken Tikka Pot Noodle.

“Well done,” I tell him.

Perhaps a flash of concern flits across McFarlane’s eyes.

I go up to bedroom #4 and ask Crabbie to follow.

Chintz wallpaper on the staircase, thin orange carpet, pictures of Belfast that look as if they are framed postcards. There’s a smell too: vinegary and sour.

I pause on the top step.

“What was O’Rourke staying in a place like this for?”

Crabbie shrugs. “He was only here for two nights.”

“Why here? Why Dunmurry? No one visits Dunmurry.”

“Some people must do so otherwise there wouldn’t be a bed and breakfast,” Crabbie says.

“Wise up, mate, this place is clearly a money-laundering scheme.”

We go along the landing to room #4.

Typical Belfast terraced bedroom: small, damp, depressing, with an old fashioned bed covered in many layers of itchy woollen blankets. Also: a grainy window that does not open; a huge Duchess chest of drawers with a large fixed mirror; an elm desk and a plastic chair next to the window; fleur de lys wallpaper from a bygone age; sepia prints on the wall of 1920s Ireland. And that smell: mildew, vinegar, cheap cleaning products. I look under the bed and examine the Duchess chest of drawers which is a monstrosity of a thing, the wood dyed to look like mahogany, but really pine. The drawers are empty and the mirror could do with a good wipe down.

I examine the desk but there’s nothing there and again we look at the chest of drawers. There are strange wear marks on the carpet, an ugly case of rising damp on two of the walls.

“We found nothing, either,” Crabbie says.

“McFarlane says he wanted Irish currency. That’s why there was such a big bill,” I tell Crabbie.

“So he went down to the Republic?”

“Could be.”

“Maybe he was murdered down there?”

“How did the body end up here?”

“A million ways. They dump the suitcase in a truck or a bin lorry going north?”

I shake my head. “We’re not getting off that easy. The suitcase came from here and the body was found here. This is our problem.”

We take a last look around.

“What do you think those marks are on the carpet?” I ask Crabbie.

He shrugs. “Is that where people kick the chair over when they hang themselves from the light fitting?”

We go back downstairs.

Brennan looks at me. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“When do we depart this royal throne of shit, this cursèd plot?”

“We’ll go when I think we’re done,” I say.

“Some of these men are on overtime, Duffy.”

“I didn’t ask you to bring them, sir.”

“It’s a tough manor.”

“Everywhere’s a tough manor.”

Brennan pulls a pipe out of his raincoat pocket and begins to fill it.

“How long, Duffy?” he insists.

“Give me five more minutes. Let’s see if the bugger’s got a greenhouse at least … Matty, come with me!”

We push through the kitchen into the wash-house where more clothes are hanging out to dry and coal is piled high in coal buckets and an old bath.

Sergeant Burke is leaning against a wall, vomiting.

“Are you okay, mate?” I ask him.

“Have you got any hair of the dog, Duffy?” he asks.

I look at Matty, who shakes his head.

“Go get the hip flask from Inspector McCallister,” I tell Matty. “Tell him it’s for me.”

He nods and goes back inside.

“Are you okay?” I ask Burke.

“I’m all right. I’m all right. Collar’s too tight or something.”

“Shall I get a medic?”

“I’m fine!” he says.

Matty comes back with McCallister’s brandy. Burke grabs it and swallows half of it. He wipes his mouth and nods.

“Knew that would sort me,” he says, with a unpleasant smile.

He goes back inside on unsteady legs.

When he’s gone I whisper to Matty: “You and me a few years from now, if we don’t watch out.”

“I’ve got fishing, what have you got, mate?” Matty asks.

“Uh …”

“You should get a pet. A tortoise is good. They’re lots of fun. You can paint stuff on their shells. My sister’s looking to get rid of hers. Twenty quid. It’s got a great personality.”

“A tortoise isn’t my idea of—”

“Hey, boy! Does your warrant cover the back garden?” McFarlane yells at Matty from the kitchen window.

“Show him the warrant, will you, DC McBride? And tell him that if he calls you boy again you’ll lift him and bring the fucker in for a comprehensive cavity search.”

Matty shows McFarlane the legalese and yells back to me: “Inspector Duffy, it sounds like somebody’s not keen for us to investigate his back yard.”

“Aye, I wonder what we’ll find,” I say.

What we find is a back garden which is a dumping ground for assorted garbage: old beds, old tyres, mattresses. In many places thin reed trees and ferns are growing through a thicket of grass. Along the wall there seems to be an ancient motorbike; but more importantly, there in the north-west corner, there’s a greenhouse.

We open the door and go inside. It’s clean, humid, well-maintained and all the windows are intact. There are a dozen boxes of healthy tomato plants growing in pots along the south-facing glass.

“Tomatoes,” Matty says.

Matty puts on his latex gloves and begins digging through them to see if there’s anything else growing in there, but in pot after pot he comes up only with soil.

“Nowt,” Matty says.

“Look through those bags of fertilizer.”

Nothing in there either. We stand there looking at the rain running down the thirty-degree angled roof in complicated rivulets.

He looks at me.

“You’re feeling it, too?” I ask him.

“What?”

“A feeling that we’re missing something?”

“No.”

“What were you looking at me like that for?”

“I just noticed all those grey hairs above your ears.”

“You’re an eejit.” I examine the plants, but Matty’s right: these really are genuine tomato plants and there is nothing secreted in the pots.

McFarlane gurns at us through the glass before going back towards the house.

“He’s lying about something, Matty, but what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s Lord Lucan. Maybe he shot someone once from a grassy knoll. Do we head now? The Chief’s getting shirty,” Matty asks.

I walk outside the greenhouse and do a thorough three-sixty perimeter scan – and low and behold, between the greenhouse and the wall I spot a plant pot sitting on a compost heap: red plastic, hastily thrown away. There’s no plant in it now but clearly there once was and perhaps residue remains.

“What do we have here?”

“What is it?”

“Gimme a bag, quick,” I tell him.

We put the plant pot in a large Ziploc to protect it from the rain.

We march back into the house.

“What have you got?” the Chief asks.

“Evidence, boss!” Matty says with an unconcealed note of triumph.

I look at McFarlane.

His face is blank.