Cold Steel (19 page)

Joan waited five minutes. At ten thirty-seven she was back on the streets. Hurrying. She stopped every now and then, pretending to tie laces, making sure she wasn't being followed. She spotted the Goon driving behind. She glanced at her watch. Ten forty-five exactly. As arranged. The Goon pulled over to the side of the road and waited while traffic passed. It was getting dark and over Dublin bay heavy rain clouds were building up. The Goon flashed
the car lights once. Joan took off her red headband, pulled her hair back with both hands, then placed the headband inside her jeans. The car lights flashed again. The code had been passed.

'Mo says you're not to ring him again,' the Goon sat in the driver's seat, Joan Armstrong was slumped well down in the back, out of sight. The Goon was Joan's supplier. He was a tall, bulky man in his fifties, coarse-skinned with nicotine-stained moustache. He was wearing black leather trousers and jacket. Even his T-shirt was black. He had a silver identity bracelet on his left wrist. It dangled loosely as he draped his arm over the back of the seat. He dropped a small clingfilm packet of white powder over his shoulder. It landed on the floor and Joan Armstrong scrambled for it. The Goon smiled. 'Hungry?'

'Fuck off.'

'Mo wants to know what happened to Jenny's bag?'

In the back seat Joan Armstrong was twisting the cloth headband around her upper arm. She slapped at the veins on the crook of her elbow.

'Fuck Mo,' she snarled. The craving for the fix was too much.

'Mo won't like it if that's all I have to tell him.' The Goon turned around. He was holding a fresh needle and syringe.

'Gimme a minute.' The voice was desperate.

A small ampoule of sterile water was handed over and within minutes the needle tip was inserted.

'Slowly, Joan,' cautioned the Goon. 'Don't rush it.' He reached across and released the makeshift tourniquet. He watched the young girl's eyes glaze. 'Where's the bag, Joan?' His voice was gentle, almost soothing.

'Gimme a minute.' Half the heroin had disappeared.

'WHERE'S THE FUCKING BAG?' The Goon was over the seat, one hand restraining the plunger. 'WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BAG?'

'The police have it,' screamed Joan Armstrong, tears
brimming. 'They won't leave me alone. I had to give them something.'

'Fuck it,' snarled the Goon. Joan Armstong's shaking fingers flushed the rest of the heroin into her body. The Goon gunned the engine alive. 'Mo's not going to like this, Joan.' He looked in the rear-view mirror noticing the girl lolling like a rag doll. He reached into a side pocket and emptied a small bottle of vodka over her blouse and jeans.

Joan Armstrong was home by eleven thirty. She slipped up the stairs with a quick shout to her brother. Her head was spinning and she had to grab at the rails to stop herself falling. Inside her bedroom she stripped quickly and stayed naked. It was an old trick she'd learned to keep her family out from her room. Her blood hadn't stained the red blouse much. That's why she'd chosen it. She dabbed at the needle point with the red cloth headband. She felt on another world, exquisitely warm and comfortable, ecstatically happy. She slipped in between the sheets and lay on her back, relishing the sensations. She even forgot the Goon's angry threats.

27

Sunday, 17 May.

It was raining heavily. Dark grey clouds hung low over the city of Dublin, forcing mist onto the hills and high ground. The temperature dropped and the outdoor thermometer on fashionable Grafton Street barely registered twelve degrees centigrade. The unseasonal weather dampened spirits and those who planned holidays wondered at the wisdom of staying in Ireland. Winter sweaters were taken out and pulled on for comfort, even indoors. The police were kept busy with another spate of drug-related incidents. Those who couldn't afford their fixes mugged for the money. Those who could afford beat up those who approached looking for money. Those who controlled the supply and demand beat up those who had fallen behind in payments and made threats against those they worried might slip into debt. On the streets dealers made contact and deals were done. The usual mixture of adulterated heroin was injected in blind alleys by men and women, young men and young women, even by children. The drug barons dined in the best restaurants stepping over huddles of human misery lying on the pavements craving a fix. Business was business, supply and demand. If the scum wanted drugs they would provide them. If they didn't do it somebody else would and why lose a steady market to some outsider?

In Rockdale Hospital for the Criminally Insane Micko Kelly was coming down from his drug-induced psychosis. The sedatives and anti-psychotics were kicking in, he was less disturbed. The voices inside his head persisted but were less intense, less strident, less angry, less demanding. He was still suspicious of everyone and lay staring at the ceiling in his cell for hours. He was unaware that outside the barbed- and razor-wired walls of the hospital his name was on everyone's lips. MAD DOG KELLY had even been scrawled on one of the walls of Hillcourt Mansions. The newspapers were reporting his arrest and detention, how he was the only suspect in the murder of Jennifer Marks. Without naming him he was being described as JUNKIE KILLER and his past exploit's, in and out of prison, set out for all to read. The nation now knew whom to hate, the government knew whom to blame. Micko Kelly was being set up. He was in a gaol of sorts, even if it was really a hospital. A lunatic who couldn't defend himself. A junkie with a history of crime and violence. The scum of the earth to many in the country. No one would give a damn if he was locked away for ever.

Journalists and TV crews followed the funeral cortege that left the Marks' mansion in Dublin's embassy belt, passing through the unfashionable Dublin 1 and 3 districts to the crematorium in Glasnevin on the north side. There, at three o'clock, the corpse of Jennifer Marks entered an incinerator to be turned into ashes. The ceremony was private, only close colleagues and family friends allowed inside the small building. Outside, in the pouring rain, TV crews from Ireland and across the world wiped repeatedly at their lenses so as not to lose their shots. Photographers snapped at anything in a black overcoat while tabloid journalists tried bribing the drivers of the cortege limousines for scraps of gossip. Standing watching, rain streaming in rivulets down his face, was Joe Harrison, the forensic photographer attached to the investigation. Even on a
Sunday Jim Clarke would not let up and had ordered photographs of those attending the cremation. As the first flashes of lightning lit up the dark skies, Harrison rewound the spool on his Nikon. In his side pocket he had three rolls of exposed film. He looked down at his soaking shoes and decided he'd done enough.

5.17 pm

Frank Clancy was trying to decide which lies to tell.

Doctors lie often. Sometimes they lie to patients about their illnesses. They he to lawyers to protect their reputations when some operation has gone horribly wrong. Occasionally they lie to colleagues about treatment results, indifference to wealth, their golf score, the size of their overdraft. Mostly doctors lie to their marriage partners. And they have a wide range of lies to choose from. That late-night emergency operation is just as likely to have been a blonde medical student hoping to advance her career on her back. The conference which would be dull and boring and too hot for the kids might mean the blonde is going instead. She was better in bed than anticipated.

There were no base motives behind Clancy's lies that afternoon. He wanted first to protect his wife and children. He moved them to Anne's mother. She lived twenty miles away and up a narrow country lane. Clancy reckoned no one would find them there.

'Look,' he lied, 'it's only for a couple of days. I have to present this paper at a hospital conference on Tuesday and I'll be like a bear trying to get it together in time. Why don't you take the kids to your mother and I'll collect you on Wednesday. I'll take the rest of the week off and we'll spend it together.'

It had happened so often in the past Anne didn't see through his deception. She packed the bags. Clancy drove the family to the Mercy Hospital and parked in a secluded
car park. On the way he checked the rear-view mirror. He saw the heavy black car shadowing. It wasn't a model he recognised. With more lies he arranged for Anne and the children to be collected by taxi and taken out a side entrance. He watched closely, ensuring the cab wasn't followed as it left. He kept looking from his office window on the third floor until it disappeared over a narrow bridge across the River Liffey. He only relaxed when he decided it hadn't been tailed. In a filing cabinet in the basement laboratory he retrieved the three blue tablets and two A4 sheets of printed documentation from
GRANNY
.
He made two copies of the pages and slipped each inside thick brown envelopes. Then he placed one of the blue tablets into each envelope, sealed and sellotaped them heavily. One envelope he addressed to the hospital administrator, the second he addressed to his personal solicitor. Then he stuck all three up his jumper.

He looked at his watch. It was almost seven thirty. He checked his pockets. Credit cards, cash, car keys. He left the keys in the filing cabinet in the basement laboratory. He had a holdall at his feet containing changes of clothes. Satisfied he slipped up through the wards to the on-call rooms. These were reserved for doctors staying in the hospital overnight when on duty. Being Sunday there would usually be a spare room and he soon located one. It was small with only a single bed and wash basin. The bathroom and shower were shared and further along the corridor.

Clancy made one telephone call, making sure Anne and the children had arrived. 'Don't bother ringing me until after Tuesday,' he advised. 'I'll be working on this paper all the time and the hospital don't like personal calls.' The lies came easily, but his heart ached. Still, he consoled himself, once I have all the information I can come out in the open. I need the final pieces to this jigsaw. Two more days. Before that press conference on Wednesday.

8.30 pm

Jim Clarke was frustrated and angry. Very annoyed. He sat in the front living room, TV on but sound at zero. Maeve had sensed the signs and was avoiding him. Katy had gone out for the day and was planning to stay overnight with a friend. Clarke had tormented her with questions as he'd listened to her get ready. Where are you going? Why won't you be home? Who's the friend? Does your mother know her? What are her parents like? Should you not come home anyway? Katy left the house half in tears, relieved to be getting away from the oppressive atmosphere. As he chewed on his dinner and sipped on his sixth full glass of wine in ninety minutes, Clarke's frustration grew. There was something very unusual about Jennifer Marks' murder and he couldn't put his finger on it. No matter how much he tried to relax and put work out of his mind, the conversations with Dan and Annie Marks kept coming back. What sort of a dysfunctional family are they?

'There's a call for you.' Maeve was standing at the door. She made a face to show her displeasure. 'It's the commissioner.' Clarke's eyebrows raised quizzically.

'Jim, sorry to disturb you.'

Clarke said he wasn't being disturbed in the least.

'I need to talk.'

Clarke knew by the tone of Donal Murphy's voice that Sunday was more or less over. He leaned against the kitchen table holding the wall phone. Maeve scowled at him from the door and he waved her away.

'This Marks' case is taking a life of its own.'

Clarke stiffened. 'What do you mean?'

'Our Minister for Health John Regan and his hunchback colleague Dempsey are giving off-the-record briefings to journalists.' Murphy's dislike for the justice minister was well known. 'They're saying enough to stitch Kelly up like a turkey at Christmas.'

'Like what?'

'That he was covered in the girl's blood. That he was discovered in a room full of knives, all of them covered in blood. That he's insane and wouldn't know what he did that night.'

Clarke waited for a pause. 'They're not far off the mark.'

'I don't care. If the civil liberties crowd get to hear of this there'll be uproar.'

Clarke knew Murphy as level-headed and courageous, a man who'd stood up to previous ministers when political interference threatened.

'Things don't look good for Kelly,' he came back. 'His T-shirt was covered in blood, there were knives in the room and he has gone clean mad. You heard about his attack on the warder?'

'Yes.'

'Well, at this stage I'd put money on him being charged and convicted.'

'So would I, but I'd like to know we have a watertight case.'

'I agree,' said Clarke. He reached across and flicked on the kettle.

'When do you think you'll have the forensics?'

'Leeson said he hoped to have something by tomorrow.'

'Hoped, only hoped?' Murphy's voice raised an octave.

'They're snowed under with work. I know he's doing his best.' Clarke was prompting the reaction. He got it.

'I'll get them working on this throughout the night.'

'That would be great.'

'I want to review this tomorrow at ten. Everyone involved.'

'Right.'

'We need to know where we're going. There's huge interest from the US in this story. There was a travel agent on the news tonight complaining of cancellations from North America because of the negative publicity. I want this wrapped up soon.' The phone went dead.

Clarke poured a liberal measure of whiskey into a thick tumbler and added boiling water. He threw in a few cloves and stirred with the handle of a fork. He sipped carefully, staring at the darkness outside. Raindrops tap-tapped on the skylight. Don't torture yourself, he thought. Kelly did it. Leave it at that.