Chapter 1
He stared at the gun lying on the bed. It had been in his possession for nearly
half his life and he’d never known what to do with it. The funny thing was, he’d
always hated guns and yet, here he was.
He heard his wife moving around downstairs, and knew soon she would call him
for a cup of tea. He had to get the gun back into its hiding place.
He thought back to the first time he’d seen it. A late night knock at the door and a
man from down the street had handed it to him with ammunition, both wrapped in
fertiliser bags.
“What the hell is this?” he’d blurted out.
“It’s a gun,” the man had said with no expression.
“What are you giving it to me for?” he’d whispered, not wanting his family to
hear.
“Because I trust you,” he’d replied.
“What the hell do you mean, you trust me? You hardly know me! And all I know
about you is you’re mixed up in the IRA. I have a family and I don’t give a damn
about the North. Now please get away from my door and take that with you.”
The man had stared at him, but all calm had disappeared from his features.
Then he spoke through gritted teeth.
“Now listen to me. The guards are going to be here shortly. Something serious
happened tonight, and now you’re mixed up in it, whether you like it or not. If you
don’t take the gun from me now, when the guards arrive and see us together, I’ll
implicate you. Even if they don’t believe me, it will mean you’ll have to stand up in
Court and give evidence against me. Do you want that for your family? It would be
much easier for you to stick the gun in the boot of your car, drive off somewhere, and
hide it. But you’d better make your mind up fast, before they arrive and arrest us
both.”
He often wondered why he’d taken it. Was it because he’d had sympathy for the
man? He didn’t think so. Maybe it was the fear of being implicated, or like the man
had said, being branded an informer. He wasn’t sure, but whatever the reason, it
seemed like providence.
He heard his wife again. He heard her wheelchair go over the door saddle in the
kitchen. He knew she was sitting there in the hallway looking up the stairs. He was
safe upstairs, yet he always felt panic when he knew she was listening.
“Is that you love?” he called down.
“Yes, what are you doing up there?”
“I’m just checking my fishing gear.”
He hated lying to her, but what could he say? That he was checking out his
sniper rifle?
“Well I’m putting on a cup of tea, so finish up and come down and share some
with me.”
“Right you are. Just give me a minute. Cut up some of that Swiss Roll I bought
yesterday.”
He pulled back the carpet, lifted the floorboards he’d loosened, and put the gun
back in its hiding place, feeling a jolt of excitement. He’d already set his little plan in
motion. They’d find out the hard way, no matter who you are, you can’t escape justice.
Chapter 2
“Tadhg, it’s, Burns,” Detective Pat Carter whispered, as he handed the phone
over to his boss. Sullivan took the phone throwing his eyes to heaven. Stuart Burns
was the Garda Commissioner and made Sullivan’s life hell.
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I’m not sure,” Burns replied. “It’s probably nothing, but we have to check it out
anyway.”
“Check what out exactly?”
He waited patiently for an answer. He could hear breathing on the other end of
the phone.
“The Minister for Justice has just been on to me. Someone has sent a message
threatening to shoot a senior politician, unless the Government will reverse certain
policy decisions. I haven’t got all the details yet. He’s meeting me tonight to go
through it. He’s afraid of this getting out. The media would have a field day. So
Tadhg, I want you to work on this yourself, just you and one other you can trust. If
this gets out, the Government will be on me like a ton of bricks. I want total
discretion. Not even a hint of this is to escape your department.”
Department, Sullivan thought to himself. What a joke. His department, as they
called it, spent its time chasing ghosts; men who thirty or forty years earlier might
have been a danger to the State. Today the most dangerous thing most of them did
was to cross the street to get their pension. Ninety per cent of his department’s time
was spent sitting outside graveyards taking photographs of old men, putting wreaths
on even older graves. He almost hoped this didn’t end up to be a hoax as he
suspected.
“Can you give me any other details?” he asked.
“Not at the moment, but in the meantime, check out the dissidents.”
“The dissidents,” Sullivan almost laughed.
“They don’t even recognise us as a legitimate police force. How could I get
anything out of them without letting the cat out of the bag?”
“That’s your problem,” his boss replied, sounding irritated. “Just do something,
and do it discreetly. If anything happens, I want proof that we were on the ball from
the moment we heard about this. Is that okay Tadhg? After all, your department was
set up to deal with this sort of situation. If there’s a problem, you better spit it out now
and I’ll get someone else on the job.”
“There’s no problem,” he replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “I was
only wondering if you had anything else for me to go on.”
“As soon as I get something, you’ll be first to know. In the meantime, use your
initiative.”
With that, the phone went dead.
“F*****g prick,” Sullivan shouted at the receiver. Carter stared at him.
“What’s up?”
“Don’t even ask,” was all he got, as his boss slammed the door behind him.
Out on the street, he calmed down a bit. As he walked along, the noise of the
traffic helped him relax. It was funny, he’d grown up in the country, yet he’d never felt
at ease there. The hustle and bustle of the city suited him. He didn’t have to think too
much in the city, he just got dragged along. Anyway, thinking was dangerous in the
Gardaí. It could get you into a lot of trouble. The sky was like lead. The fumes from
the traffic seeped into his lungs. He decided to light up and add to the congestion. As
he inhaled, he smiled and thought to himself, he’d made the right decision. Twelve
months earlier, his wife had given him an ultimatum - her or the cigarettes. Naturally,
he had chosen the latter. He could see her standing there in her designer track suit
giving her usual lecture.
“You are only thirty five years old, yet you look, sound and smell like an old man.
Well, I’m not staying around to waste my life watching you kill yourself.”
She even blamed his smoking for the fact that she didn’t want children, saying it
wouldn’t be fair having a child grow up in a smoky environment. But he knew better.
He knew she was just a selfish b***h, who spent the day preening herself and had no
room for a child in her pathetic little life. Well, by all reports, there was no patter of
tiny feet in her new relationship either. She couldn’t blame smoking now. She was
living with a health freak like herself. He owned a string of healthy living outlets and
gymnasiums around the city. Tadhg suspected they’d been doing press ups together
long before his bad habits had become an issue.
So here he was, Tadhg Sullivan, the boy from the bog who had come to the city
and done well for himself, married a Judge’s daughter, who was friends with the
commissioner, who had suddenly been promoted to head a Special Task Force,
much to the consternation of his more experienced colleagues. He was walking on
air, but unfortunately it was all an illusion, and was disappearing fast. First, the
connected wife, and very soon, if he didn’t watch himself, the job as well. That
b*****d of a commissioner was breathing down his neck ever since the separation.
The golden boy’s shine was fading. Then, he thought to himself, maybe if this threat
against the state was for real and he could catch whoever was responsible, it might
just make him shine again.
He turned quickly and almost collided with a man behind him. He apologised,
sidestepped, and walked back to the station.
By the time he got back, he’d calmed down and decided to tell Carter what he
knew and to get to work on it as soon possible. If he didn’t straighten himself out, he
was going to lose everything. He needed to get her out of his head and get on with
his life. The funny thing was, when he was living with her, he wouldn’t have cared if
she’d jumped into the Liffey. But from the moment she’d walked out, he’d become
obsessed. One minute he was delighted she was gone, the next he was having
Carter check up on her new boyfriend, hoping to get some dirt on him to make things
hard for her with her daddy, but no luck. He was as clean as a whistle.
When he got into the station he looked around at the starkness of his office. The
magnolia painted walls, the grey filing cabinets and the barred windows. He might as
well have been in a prison cell. For the first time in years, he thought fondly of his
home in Kerry. At least there, no matter how dead you felt inside, the storms blowing
in off the Atlantic made you feel alive. When he was young, his father would drive
them out to Dingle, where they would stand on the beach and feel the wind whip
around them. His father used to say it would blow the cobwebs away. Maybe that’s
what he needed, something to blow the cobwebs away. Maybe this case would do
the job.
He called Carter into his office and outlined what he knew about the case. He
told him to get in touch with the Provo’s and find out about any guns that had gone
missing through the years. He warned him not to hint to anyone what it was all
about. He told him to check on licensed weapons as well, but he was pretty sure from the way Burns spoke that this had paramilitary involvement.
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