Adrian McKinty - I Hear the Sirens in the Street

“So, I hear you’re preparing to make a serious allegation against a local police department?” he said.

“I’m not making any allegation,” I said.

“You’re not filing a complaint?”

“No.”

“You’re not alleging theft or the violation of your person?”

“No.”

He took off his absurd aviator sunglasses. His eyes were light green. Squinty.

“What is it that you want, Duffy?”

“I only want one thing. But I’ll tell you what I don’t want first. I don’t want to know who was in the photographs with DeLorean. I don’t want to know what operation you or other agencies are planning with or without the cooperation of John DeLorean. I don’t want to know why you followed me to the Ten Cents Bank Safety Deposit or why you did what you did with me and the car. I just want to know one thing. Tell me that, and I’ll leave this green and not so fucking pleasant land and I won’t come back.”

“And what is that one thing, Mr Duffy?”

“I want to know who killed Bill O’Rourke.”

“What if we don’t know who killed Mr O’Rourke?”

“Then I want to know what you do know about him and his mission in Ireland.”

Howell grimaced.

He thought about it and stood.

“Wait here,” he said.

“Where am I going to go?”

He went out to make his phone call.

He came back two hours later with a document for me to sign on a roll of fax paper. It was a confession to the charge of DUI and dangerous driving.

“This stays sealed as long as you keep your mouth shut,” Howell said.

I didn’t like the look of it, but I signed.

“Good,” he said, with a smile that didn’t suit his face.

“Now your part of the bargain,” I said.

Howell sat on a chair and pulled it close to the bed.

“O’Rourke was a Treasury Agent recruited from the IRS. He kept his IRS cover but he was Treasury his whole career. He looked into currency fraud and fraudulent currency transactions. Occasionally he went into the field. He was good,” Howell said.

“What was he doing in Ireland?”

“Well, he was compulsorily retired from the IRS at sixty. Officially retired, so to speak.”

“But unofficially?”

“He still worked for the Treasury Department.”

“So what was he doing in Ireland? Was he investigating DeLorean?”

Howell grimaced. “Yes.”

“As part of something bigger?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“That, I am not permitted to tell you.”

“A Treasury thing?”

“It was only after Agent O’Rourke’s death that we realised that two agencies of the United States government were working on the same problem.”

“Jesus! The FBI and the fucking Treasury were both investigating DeLorean and you didn’t tell one another?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss that at this time.”

“Okay. Tell me this: when did O’Rourke file his last report? Where was he? What was the situation on the ground?”

“O’Rourke wasn’t required to file daily reports. He didn’t generally present his findings until he knew what he was talking about. Treasury didn’t expect a report until he had concluded his field work.”

“But he came back to America after his initial visit.”

“To attend a colleague’s retirement party.”

“And leave off those photographs?”

“Apparently.”

“You didn’t know about the photographs until you started tailing me?”

“No.”

“Why did you start tailing me?”

“Immigration alerted us to your arrival in the country. We thought you might try and do some digging over here.”

I leaned back into the sturdy hospital pillow. Through the double-glazed window of Mass General I could see rowers and little sailing boats gliding past on the Charles River.

“Who killed O’Rourke?”

Howell shook his head. “We don’t know,” he said.

“You really don’t know?”

“We don’t know. We were hoping that the RUC would find out for us.”

“Maybe we would have if you had cooperated with us from the start.”

“You must understand, Inspector Duffy, we have bigger fish to fry here. Special Agent O’Rourke would have understood that.”

“What do you know about his death?”

“No more than you do, Inspector Duffy. Your investigation has been the primary information vector for us.”

“You knew that he was investigating John DeLorean, which I didn’t discover until the last few days.”

“Inter-agency suspicion and communication problems have been a feature of this investigation from the beginning. You, for example, were not supposed to have been injured, never mind nearly killed. Our apologies for that.”

“So why was I nearly fucking killed?”

“Our surrogates got carried away.”

“I see.”

“They have been disciplined.”

“I would hope so. You have no idea at all about who killed Bill O’Rourke?”

“No.”

“Why should I believe you?” I asked.

“I can’t think of a reason after the way you’ve been treated, Inspector Duffy, but nevertheless it’s the truth.”

I nodded.

There was a period of silence.

“It has come to our attention that your investigation into Special Agent O’Rourke’s death has more or less been suspended?” Howell asked.

“Yes, it has. We can’t close the case because we never found his killer, but the investigation has reached a natural dead end,” I said.

Howell’s eyes narrowed. “It is in the interests of the United States Government that the investigation into Special Agent O’Rourke’s death remain suspended at least until our own investigation into John DeLorean has concluded.”

“I’m sure you don’t want to tell me how to do my job, Agent Howell, but I will say that in the absence of any new evidence I don’t really see how I can proceed with the O’Rourke case at the moment.”

Howell nodded, picked up the faxed confession and put it in a briefcase.

“Do you have any more questions?” he asked.

“A million.”

He looked at his watch. “Well, Inspector Duffy, I’m afraid that those are the only answers you are going to get, today.” He tapped the briefcase. “I trust that I can count on your discretion?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll keep your nose clean, I’m sure,” he said.

“Once I get the bloody scabs out of it, I’ll keep it clean.”

He walked to the door, opened it, but didn’t leave.

He looked at me and then, in a lower tone of voice, he said: “There is one thing, Duffy.”

“Yes?”

“Bill O’Rourke had a condo in Florida.”

“I know.”

“He grew plants on the balcony. We had them analysed. You know what those plants were?”

“Rosary pea?” I gasped.

He nodded and closed the door behind him.

30: BACK TO BELFAST

They took me out of Mass General on a gurney and across Boston to Logan in a black windowed private ambulance. I felt like Howard fucking Hughes.

They flew me first class to New York LGA on the Delta Shuttle.

An FBI driver met me with a wheelchair.

JFK. The first-class lounge. The Concorde from JFK to Heathrow.

Christ, they wanted rid of me fast . Whatever they were cooking up was hot, hot, hot. And speaking of food. Canapés and champagne; Russian caviar with traditional accompaniments (blini, chopped egg white and yolk, chopped spring, white, and red onions); free-range chicken breast with black truffle, foie gras, savoy cabbage; lobster and saffron crushed potato cakes with spinach and bloody Mary relish; cheese service with Stilton, chevre and pecorino with balsamic vinegar, biscuits, walnuts, dried apricots and berries; a hand-made box of chocolates; port wine and tea; a sweet of mango and almond gratin.