Dublin Dead: A Novel

PROLOGUE

THE DOOR. ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS GET TO IT. THE BREATH BURNED IN HIS lungs as he ran. Each rasping heave of his chest was all he could hear above the thud of his feet on the sun-dried grass, the scuff of his trainers kicking up the powdery earth beneath, and the baleful thumping tread of the man pursuing him through the dark, fifty, maybe only forty, metres behind, gaining with every stride. No way would he risk glancing back. He already knew what death looked like.

Ahead, the boxy white walls of a low-slung house stood out against the dark slopes and shadowed gullies of the hillside behind and the moon-bright sky above. The door. That was all that mattered. La puerta. He had to focus on it. De duer. The door to his own house. Stout, defensible. In his head he brought it forward, saw every detail, every swirling knot in its stained oak planking, the black wrought-iron handle, the macho studwork so beloved by the Spanish, the twisted black metal of the grille, through which, even now, she would be staring, waiting.

Sweat crawled like spider legs down his face, his limbs grown soft from too many years away. In his own mind he was back on the streets of Dublin in the early Eighties, pissing ahead of Tommy Hanrahan and his bunch of vicious little shits. Eleven years old, quick as a switchblade and twice as sharp, he was laughing, cursing, taunting them over his shoulder, feeling the chill air run across his arms and legs like a pulse of power, the walls and balconies of the flats towering above, funnelling them all towards the corner alley where Sean Carmody and his gang, the ones who changed his life by taking him in, waited with bats and bricks to spring a savage surprise.

A different world, a different time, a different life. Who would ever have guessed skinny little Dec would come so far? And for what? To end it here, with his face kicked flat in the Spanish dust? Fuck off. He felt his lungs expand to greet the extra oxygen he needed and a surge of energy flood into his calf muscles, into his thighs. The heaviness of doubt fell away and his speed picked up even as he reached the patio. The door was only five metres off when the crump of the shotgun reached his ears and he felt the first shower of pellets whistle past, then . . . Shit, oh shit . . . the scalding twist of pain in his right hip wrenched him around, sent him spinning like he’d been shoved by the hand of God, and he stumbled, wheeling, somehow still upright, clawing the air in front of him, throwing himself out towards the door.

And he was there, slamming into the hard wood, and the door opened and he pushed through, falling, the shredded muscle of his thigh burning like a rod of molten iron, hope alive in him again. But where was she? Nowhere to be seen, and a wave of cold fear smashed into him as he heard the feet pounding up behind, the double click of hammers being cocked, and he turned, saw the dark man above him, face blank, eyes expressionless, just a halo of blond hair burnished by the moonlight behind and the gun glinting level at his waist, trigger finger tensing.

Oh shit, oh fuck, where in the name of—?

Suicide estate agent a financial casualty

By Siobhan Fallon,

chief reporter

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of millionaire Irish estate agent Cormac Horgan was solved yesterday when remains washed up on the banks of the River Avon in southwest England were identified as his.

Horgan, 29, of Gorteen House, Skibbereen, Co. Cork, who vanished last week, was said to have been in despair after suffering catastrophic business losses in the downturn.

His body was discovered by a dog-walker two miles from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, a well-known magnet for would-be suicides.

Mr. Seamus Horgan, an uncle of the deceased, said his nephew Cormac was a pillar of the local community.

A business associate, who did not wish to be named, said Mr. Horgan was under unbearable pressure to repay debts of €6 million following the collapse of the family-run Horgans chain of estate agents.

Cormac was under fierce financial and emotional strain. The banks were turning the screw and he faced losing everything. I think it was just too much for him.

A spokesman for the Irish Property Association, Colm Donegan, said Mr. Horgan’s death brings to 26 the number of financial casualties from the property and construction industries to have taken their own lives in the past two years of economic turmoil.

The Bristol Coroner’s Office will release Mr. Horgan’s remains tomorrow, with a formal inquest to follow. Mr. Horgan, who was . . . turn to page 3

—Sunday Herald,

12 September 2010

MONDAY

20 SEPTEMBER 2010

1

THE ADS ARE UP NEXT AND THEN YOU’RE ON, SIOBHAN.

Siobhan Fallon glanced up from the monitor showing a live feed from TV5’s main studio and nodded at the bored-looking runner. It was a little after seven forty in the morning and her spot on the Full Irish breakfast show was slated for seven forty-five. She had been on the show before and knew the ropes, arriving with plenty of time to get through make-up. Still, a pang of unease clawed at her stomach as she heard the presenter Carl Magner giving viewers a rundown of the wonders awaiting them on the far shores of the next ad break.

"Coming up in a few minutes we have Siobhan Fallon, chief reporter at the Sunday Herald, talking about her new book, a gripping account of her shocking encounter with the Dublin serial killer they called ‘the Priest,’ and how she very nearly didn’t survive it."

A blare of brassy theme music, then a shot of the book cover filled the screen. It was all lurid reds and golds against a background of the Papal Cross, with the title screaming out in stark white, Crucified: How I Crossed the Priest and Lived to Tell the Tale.

God, she loved that cover. Underneath it, in smaller print, was her byline, or, rather, her name. Despite weeks dictating the book on her digital recorder while she was in hospital—and long months revising and rewriting, getting it lawyered and correcting proofs—she still hadn’t got used to the idea of being an author. It sounded so much better than chief reporter, and her agent said there was even a chance Hollywood could come calling.

Through here, the runner said, pulling back a corner of heavy, black soundproof curtain and guiding Siobhan into the dark fringes of the studio, indicating that she should sit on a straight-backed chair and wait to be called. It was nice and cool in the wings, away from the lights, and oddly calming. She watched as the presenters larked about off-air at the far end of the studio, rehearsing in her own mind the points she wanted to get across about the book.

How’re ya, Siobhan? Two minutes now. The floor manager’s silhouette loomed out of the glare of the studio lights to shake her hand. Then he invited her to move over to the curving red sofa on which Full Irish guests were interviewed. By the time she sat down, Magner and his co-presenter, Denise Redmond, were there too, sleek and welcoming, giving it the full mwah-mwah, the pally shoulder-squeeze, settling her in with practised ease.

Twenty seconds, guys, came the call from behind the camera.

The two presenters kept up the chit-chat as the floor manager counted them down, asking how long she’d been back at work, whether she was still having to do the physio, whether she’d mind if the camera guy did a close-up of her hands . . .

Her hands. She looked down at them, clasped in her lap. On the back of each was a raised starburst of dead white flesh, indelible reminders of the night that bastard Sean Rinn had hammered thick homemade nails through them into a cross made from old wooden planks and hoisted her aloft, trying to rip the life from her. She had scars on her feet and ribs, too. Horrible, ugly stigmata that even now made her shudder every time she showered or had to rub moisturiser into them. But it was the hands that bothered her most. She hated the way other people obsessed over them, wanted to see and touch them, like some awful talisman. No matter how much she’d excised the trauma of her nightmare experience over the intervening months, nothing sapped her spirit like these physical, visible relics of that night.

Look, I’d prefer if you— she said, but it was too late. The floor manager had run out of countdown fingers and both presenters were swivelling their knees, faces, and full attention towards the camera.

"So, what would you do if a serial killer chose you as his next victim? Magner asked his viewers chummily. Well, with us this morning is a woman who, amazingly, can answer that question."

Yes. The lovely Redmond took up the theme. Last year Siobhan Fallon, one of Ireland’s best-known newspaper reporters, had an extraordinarily lucky escape after she was attacked and almost died at the hands of the savage serial killer known as the Priest. Welcome, Siobhan. You’re looking terrific for someone who only fourteen months ago was nailed to a cross . . .

Drugs lord, my arse, Ford said, flicking a dismissive hand at the newspaper.

Detective Inspector Mike Mulcahy looked up from his Irish Times, marvelling at Liam Ford’s ability to materialise from nowhere. At six foot one himself, Mulcahy was hardly Lilliputian, but his detective sergeant was a good three inches taller than him, and a few inches wider as well. On that dull September morning, the rain outside sucking all the light and life from the day, he’d rolled up to Mulcahy’s desk as silently as a fogbank furling in off the sea.

Somebody thought him important enough to spend money on, Mulcahy replied. It looks like a professional job.

Up against a dreary tribunal report, a factory in Tuam gone bust, and yet more stormy economic forecasts for the stumbling Irish economy, the headline they were talking about was not the biggest on the front page. But for two members of the Garda drugs squad’s International Liaison Unit in Dublin Castle, it was the only one likely to be of any real interest: DUBLIN DRUGS LORD SLAIN IN SPAIN.

Mulcahy stood up and handed the newspaper to Ford, who held it at arm’s length as he read the report of how thirty-seven-year-old Declan Bingo Begley, a career criminal from Crumlin, had been discovered dead on waste ground in the southern Spanish resort of Fuengirola the day before.

Where did they get all this stuff about Russians? Ford asked, an eyebrow raised in scepticism. He scratched the back of his neck, frowning as he read how the assassination was rumoured to have been carried out on behalf of an expatriate Russian mafia kingpin living in the Marbella area. Begley, allegedly, had beaten up the man’s nephew in a bar fight a couple of weeks earlier. Big mistake.

No idea, Mulcahy said. That story’s the first I heard of it. Probably the local journos getting inventive.

The supposed Russian connection was the only part of the story that wasn’t already familiar to Mulcahy. The day before, within hours of Begley’s body being discovered, he had received a call at home from Javier Martinez, an old colleague from his years with Europol in Madrid, urgently requesting background information from the Garda Síochána. The dead man, Begley, had been a mid-ranking dealer in one of Dublin’s more vicious drugs gangs before he’d retired, or more accurately—being only twenty-seven at the time—fled, to the balmier criminal climes of the Costa del Sol a decade earlier.

But over a bar brawl? It’s not exactly the Bingo we used to know, is it? He’d have got some eejit to have the brawl for him.

Mulcahy came around the desk, thinking back to the late 1990s, when he and Ford had fancied themselves the scourge of Dublin’s drugs gangs, heading up a task force to tackle the city’s out-of-control heroin epidemic. He’d encountered Begley more than once back then and knew that the man’s reputation, as more of a ladies’ man than your typical Dublin hard case, was well deserved. He’s always been a bit of a delegator that way, too proud of his looks to risk spoiling them, happy to let his heavies do the scrapping for him.

A man can change a lot over the years. Anyway, like I said, Madrid didn’t mention anything to me about a Russian angle.

How come they’re so positive it was professional?

It was a little too early for Mulcahy to appreciate Ford’s dog-with-a-bone act. Not that it was to be discouraged. Friendship aside, that belligerent inquisitiveness was the main reason Mulcahy had asked Ford to come work with him when he set up the unit twelve months previously. But there were times—like first thing on a Monday morning—when it wasn’t the most welcome of personality traits.

Martinez emailed me the preliminary report, and some of the crime-scene photos. Here, have a look for yourself.

Mulcahy sat down behind his desk again and swivelled his monitor so that Ford could see the screen as well. He opened a folder of JPEGs and clicked on the first.

Ah, Christ on a bike! Ford recoiled from the image—a close-up of a blackened, distorted, blood-caked mass of something that, apart from one open eye, was barely recognisable as a face. Not least because half the lower jaw and neck were missing, exposing several inches of spinal column attached to a gore-spattered torso. Are you trying to make me lose my breakfast?

Sorry—wrong one. Mulcahy closed it down and drew the cursor across to the next photograph. Here’s what I wanted, the long shot.

This image was less repellent to the eye, at least initially. At its top was a clear blue cloudless sky, and at its base was what appeared to be a dusty, abandoned building site. Smashed-up red clay roof tiles, rust-streaked chunks of concrete, and peeling slabs of plasterboard were scattered all around a patch of scrubby, sun-baked ground. Here and there a yawning fridge or disembowelled washing machine added blocks of stark white to the scene, but the main focus was on a hummock of seemingly ordinary household waste, a metre high and no more than four or five across. It was at the centre of this that Declan Begley’s body was splayed, on its back, fully clothed, with what was left of his jaw hanging loose and seemingly crying for justice to God in heaven above.

It’s an illegal dump, on an abandoned building site off the coast road between Marbella and Fuengirola, a few kilometres from where Begley lived, Mulcahy said. He zoomed in closer to the rubbish pile, pointing at the dead man’s domed abdomen. Bit of a shock for the fly-tipper who found him. The body had been there a couple of days already, badly bloated—it averages thirty degrees Celsius there this time of year. Some pretty horrible rodent and insect damage as well.

Nice. Ford grimaced. Shotgun, yeah?

Yeah, old-style—both barrels in the face and chest.

But he wasn’t done there? Ford circled his finger around the body. It was all a bit too neat, not nearly enough blood and debris for the incident to have occurred where the body was lying.

Right. The shooting took place at his house. Early hours of Thursday morning, they reckon.

And they know all this how?

Mulcahy sat back, beginning to enjoy the inquisition, despite himself. Well, ID was easy: he had a wallet, cards on him, and he’s well known locally. When they got to his address, they found the door open, the rest of his face decorating the hall.

Stylish. No witnesses, then?

He lived alone. The house is in the hills, on its own parcel of land, no near neighbours.

Ford nodded, getting the picture. So whoever did it wanted him found quickly. And who’s going to risk dragging a corpse to a dump unless they want to make a point, right?

That’s what they reckon: classic gangster job. It’s a message, a warning.

So maybe the Russian-mafia thing isn’t all that far-fetched, then?

Mulcahy put his hands up. Obviously that’s what the press reckon, but our friends in Spain are more interested in Bingo’s past troubles here in Dublin, and seem to think it could be drugs-related. No surprise there, really.

But that was all ten years ago or more. He’s hardly been back here since.

Yeah—Mulcahy nodded—but maybe they know something we don’t. Either that or they’re in denial. I mean, look at the name on these JPEGs.

He pointed at the picture thumbnails in the folder on his computer screen. Each one had the tag muertodedublin, followed by a number.

What’s that supposed to mean?

"Muerto de Dublin, Mulcahy said in his best Spanish accent. Not to put too fine a translation on it, ‘Dublin dead.’"

Fuck’s sake. Ford shook his head. They’re just trying to push the work on us.

That may be so. Either way, we’ve had an urgent request to send a full background report to the murder team in Malaga, plus any ‘relevant current intelligence.’

Like whether any of our bozos are out there topping up their tans just now?

You got it in one, Mulcahy agreed. So don’t bother hanging up your coat. I thought we could go have a gander at who’s where this morning, see if we can stir up some sleeping beauties.

Did you see yer one on the box this morning? Ford asked as they trotted down the stairs.

Who’s that? Mulcahy pulled open the heavy front door.

"Yer one—your one, Ford emphasised. That reporter Siobhan Fallon. She was on the breakfast show, promoting her new book—you know, about Rinn and her. And you, too, by the sound of it."

It wasn’t the cold whip of rain in his face as he stepped out that made Mulcahy feel like he’d been slapped. He’d been dreading this news ever since Siobhan had phoned him months before, out of the blue, long after he had given up trying to break through the impenetrable barriers she’d thrown up around herself while she was in hospital. She hadn’t returned any of his calls. And there she was, all of a sudden, asking him if he would work with her on a book about Rinn. Banging on about how it was his story just as much as hers; that he was the one who’d caught the bastard and saved not just her life but others’ too. As if he didn’t know that already. As if what was broken between them could be brushed aside for a share in some shitty advance. He didn’t even like thinking about Rinn. Why would he want to get involved in serving him up as some bogeyman in a book? Anyway, he’d got in too much trouble over Rinn at work already. No way had he wanted to bring all that down on himself again. So she’d gone ahead and done it without him.

She was looking good, I’ll say that for her, Ford rabbited on, but, Jaysus, she can’t half talk. Said your name should be on the cover as well, you know, that you were the hero but you wouldn’t take the credit for it. Is it true? Did she ask you?

I didn’t even know the book was coming out. Mulcahy sidestepped the question. He’d heard nothing from Siobhan since. She’d given him his chance, but he didn’t like the terms. Didn’t feel there was any way back. So he’d buried it away at the back of his mind. Praying she might forget about the book; knowing she wouldn’t.

I reckon she’s still got the hots for you, boss. Ford laughed, elbowing Mulcahy. You’d better hope Orla didn’t see it.

Just shut up and get the car, would you, Mulcahy said, pushing Ford ahead, straining to maintain a note of good humour in his voice. It wasn’t Ford’s fault; nobody really knew what had happened between Siobhan and himself the year before. He hoped to Christ they wouldn’t find out now, and that her damned book would be discreet. He wanted to believe that, but based on her past form it didn’t seem likely.

It’s that one over there, said Ford, clicking the key fob and getting an identifying flash of lights from one of the pool cars, a blue Mondeo, parked at the base of the castle’s turreted medieval Record Tower.

They climbed in and Ford reversed out and turned, then waited a moment for the barrier to rise at the massive stone gateway before heading out onto Ship Street, the dark cobbles rattling the car’s stiffened suspension. Then it was straight into the mid-morning traffic, a slow crawl up through the Coombe and Dolphin’s Barn, the rain getting heavier the farther out they got.

Mulcahy forced himself to push all thought of Siobhan Fallon from his mind, and of Orla Murphy, the woman he’d been seeing for the last few months. Where he and Ford were heading, you couldn’t afford distractions. For years now, a vicious turf war had raged between the gangs that controlled the drugs trade in the blighted inner suburb of Drimnagh and rivals who ran the similarly grim Crumlin estates bordering it to the south. The deepening recession had only made matters worse, the dwindling market for recreational drugs sparking off outbursts of vicious gang violence. So far, the dispute had cost twenty-two lives in tit-for-tat killings, nearly all of them kids in their teens and early twenties. A terrible waste, some said, although the most any of them ever aspired to was waste, anyway.

The hypnotic whump of the windscreen wipers filled the car as Ford slowed to a stop and waited for a break in the traffic to turn into Gandon Road. It looked like any other grey residential estate in Drimnagh, ranks of ill-kempt council houses staring soullessly at each other across the street, but no one who knew the area would venture in there without good reason. Mulcahy spotted three youths in hoodies in the porch of the corner house opposite. As Ford eased the car across the junction and past them, one of the boys raised his right arm and took a sight along it—index and middle finger extended, thumb cocked—and loosed off an imaginary round at them.

Even this feckin’ downpour doesn’t keep them off the street, Ford muttered, more by way of acknowledgement than anything else.

Mulcahy noticed that another of the boys was on a mobile phone, doubtless letting Tommy the Trainer Hanrahan know that the boys in blue were on their way. That was par for the course. Hanrahan was one of the biggest players among the loose coalition of drug-dealing thugs who ran Drimnagh, and nobody got anywhere near without him knowing about it in advance. He had secured his position not only by engaging in more psychotic levels of savagery than anyone else around him, but also by running an extremely efficient network of dealers, enforcers, and informants. His nickname referred not only to his obsessive working out in local gyms but also his ability to bring out the brutality in everyone he brought into his circle, teaching them how to bend the world to his will through threats and physical persuasion.

Over there, number twenty-seven, Mulcahy said. On the right, behind that wreck.

Half on the pavement and half off, a burnt-out car was angled slightly out and away from the scrubby patch of bare earth and dismantled engine parts that passed for a front garden. It resembled nothing so much as a tank trap.

Do you think he’s worried about a ram raid? Ford snorted as he pulled in across the road and cut the engine.

It’s not for the Dublin in Bloom judges, anyway.

A flurry of wind brought the rain spitting full force into Mulcahy’s face as he got out of the car and cursed, gathering the collar of his coat to his neck as he crossed the road. Before their feet hit the footpath, the front door of number 27 opened and Tommy Hanrahan appeared in the entrance.

He was a tall man, about Mulcahy’s height, but bigger around the shoulders and chest from all the working out. Black hair cropped close to the skull lent his brow a primitive cast, accentuated by heavy eyebrows, a square jaw, and a neck that looked thickened by steroid use. His other facial features were correspondingly broad, apart from two small, close-set brown eyes, which held absolutely no warmth.

It’s yerselves, is it? Hanrahan said, as if he’d known them all his life. It’s been a while since we had youse lot out here.

The door may have been open, but the wrought-iron security gate in front of it stayed shut, forcing Mulcahy and Ford to huddle up, backs to the elements, under the porch’s tiny canopy.

Aren’t you going to invite us in, Tommy? Ford asked.

Ah, y’know, the place’s a bit of a mess and the missus would only be getting embarrassed. Hanrahan smiled. If you’d phoned ahead, now, the lads an’ me might’ve had a chance to tidy up a bit.

A chatter of moronic laughter leaked from the three goons lined up in the hallway behind Hanrahan. If it’d been a movie, they would’ve been big guys, muscle, proper apes, but this lot made a pathetic-looking crew. In their knock-off trackies and thin Dunnes sweaters they could have passed for any of the string-of-piss junkies they made their living off. Their eyes, though, had an edge you never got in a smackhead’s dead-eye stare. These creeps would knife you as soon as look at you.

You heard about Declan Begley? Mulcahy asked.

Good riddance to bad fuckin’ rubbish. Hanrahan scowled. That lowlife was begging for a vent in the head a long time ago, and if I’m honest, I’d’ve been happy to put it there myself. But you don’t need me to tell you that, right?

We know you put the word out on him, Ford said.

Yeah, well, that was years ago and the yellow gobshite went and done a runner, didn’t he? So, like I said, I’d love to take credit for it, but I can’t. I had nothin’ to do with Bingo being topped. True as God. Hanrahan folded his arms and adopted an expression of innocence that could have graced an angel’s face in church. One of the fallen ones, next to Lucifer.

And none of your lads just happen to be out in Spain this week, getting in a bit of autumn sunshine? Mulcahy asked.

Not that I know of. But, fuck me, with all that high-tech surveillance at the airports nowadays, youse fellas’d probably have a better idea about that than me, eh? Hanrahan laughed and looked behind him again, eliciting another round of whooping from the crew.

Glad to hear it, Tommy, Mulcahy said, but, just to let you know, I’m calling in on Martin Lynch on my way back from here, and if he says anything to the contrary, we might have to come back and get you in for a proper chat.

Hanrahan’s expression darkened. You wouldn’t want to believe a word that wanker says. And I wouldn’t bother comin’ back, either. He unfolded his thick arms and grabbed the wrought-iron gate, rattling it. I’ve got bars on all the downstairs windows and doors. To prevent unwelcome intrusions, y’know.

Makes you feel at home, Tommy, does it? Ford asked.

Hanrahan didn’t like that. Despite being hauled into Garda stations and courtrooms all his adult life, he had been convicted only twice on minor charges and on both occasions the sentences had—all too typically—been suspended.

Fuck you, copper, he snarled. You know I’ve never done time.

Yeah, I know, Ford said, bending forward, his face glowering over Hanrahan’s through the grille. But with those three monkeys you’ve got in there with you, Tommy, it wasn’t prison I was thinking of. It was the zoo.

2

IT’S AWFUL WARM FOR THAT GET-UP TODAY. HOW DO YOU STAND THE heat in it?

Siobhan Fallon tugged at the damp collar of her cashmere twinset in a futile effort to cool herself, and silently cursed the elderly Cork woman who’d made the remark. Of course she was too bloody hot. She’d nearly passed out in the church during the mass. And it was no better now that they were all outside, waiting for the hearse to depart, the sun all but cracking the flagstones of the old churchyard they were standing in.

It had been cold and lashing rain in Dublin when the taxi collected her from the TV5 studios at a quarter past eight and raced across the city to deposit her at Heuston Station, just in time to catch the train to Cork. That was the weather Siobhan had dressed for. How the hell was she to know it would turn out to be one of the hottest days of the year in Cork, just a hundred and sixty miles to the southwest? And how could a small island like Ireland even encompass two such ridiculous extremes of weather, anyway? There wasn’t much she could do about it, short of strip off right here in the churchyard. She’d love to see the old woman’s face if she did that.

Instead Siobhan closed her reporter’s notebook and stuck her pen into the spiral of white wire along the top. I think I’ll be getting off now, Mrs. . . . eh?

Burke, said the woman. "Teresa Burke, with an e."

Yes, goodbye, Siobhan said, amused the woman could think she’d said anything worth quoting. She walked away, circling the crowd of mourners still milling outside the church doors. A fine turnout, as they say. Cormac Horgan, the young Cork estate agent whose suicide in Bristol she’d reported in the Sunday Herald a week earlier, was getting as