“I’m not sure I would categorize it quite that way, sir.”
“The killer made a monkey out of you. Sending you postcards, sending you on wild-goose chases up to Belfast to get anonymous notes, writing you codes! That sort of thing doesn’t happen in Northern Ireland.”
“Neither does a gay serial killer, sir.”
“You were being played, son.”
“You may be right, sir, in fact I think that the notes, the list of names, the music score, the murders subsequent to Tommy Little’s may have been a smokescreen to cover an assassination of a high-ranking IRA operative who-”
Brennan held up his hand. “Save it for your report. It’s not your worry any more. Nor mine. It’s that most glorious of things now: someone else’s problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s my fault, Sean, I should have reined you in. You’re very young. It was my job to supervise you, to mentor you, to get you to take all this in a more deliberate manner. I thought Sergeant McCallister would help, I thought an experienced man like McCrabban would help. It should have been me.”
“No, sir, if there’s any blame to be apportioned for my handling of this investigation, it’s mine alone.”
“Detective Chief Inspector Todd is a good man. He worked the Shankill Butchers case. He’ll have a couple of inspectors under him and three or four sergeants. An entire forensic team. They’ll find this freak and get it sorted in no time at all.”
I tried a last desperate throw of the dice. “I thought the point of this, sir, was that in these troubled times resources were at a premium. Surely someone of Detective Chief Inspector Todd’s calibre would be best served looking into terrorist-related offences?”
“Not now that the Chief Constable’s taken an interest. Not now that the Secretary of State has been on the blower. Not now that the
“In that case, sir, my team could help with-”
“No!” Brennan exclaimed.
“No, Sergeant Duffy. DCI Todd has his own team and resources and he doesn’t want you cluttering up his investigation. You are not to interview any of the witnesses or interfere with this investigation in any way. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Clearly Todd not only didn’t like me but had utter contempt for the work that I had done so far on this case.
And who knew? Maybe he was right. Maybe I had cocked this whole thing up through lack of experience.
Brennan and I stared at one another.
“You’re not being reprimanded or anything. Don’t get that idea. This is just a simple reassignment. And in case you’re wondering, I did fight for you, Sean. But this thing has just become … The names in the
“Yes, sir. But I can still help, sir, I’ve got a lot of ideas.”
He coughed and looked uneasy. “I’ll be blunt, Sean. Todd was furious at you last night. He wanted me to put you on report. I put him straight on that but he doesn’t want you poking your nose in. He wants you to forward all tips and evidence straight to his team at Special Branch.”
I nodded. I had heard enough. I had heard enough and I was desperate to get out of here. “Of course … So what do you want me to do now, sir?”
“You’re to type up your report on Tommy Little and Andrew Young, fax it off to Todd’s team at Special Branch and when that’s done … Well, when that’s done, you can go back to your work on the Ulster bank fraud. They’re all important. Every case.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you can stick Matty and Crabbie on those bike thefts from Paddington’s Warehouse.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, go. Type that report. Don’t mope! And get your bloody hair cut!”
“Yes, sir.”
I left the office and took a deep a breath. I sat down at my desk.
Crabbie and Matty were looking at me through the door.
“Do you already know?” I asked them.
Crabbie nodded.
“It’s probably for the best,” Matty said. “I mean, who wants to be known as the detective who solved the Belfast Queer Murders? It’s not like catching the Yorkshire Ripper, is it?”
“No, I suppose it isn’t … Listen, lads, I have this report to type up and you two are to get onto that bicycle theft case … ach, fuck it, who fancies a pint?”
We retired next door to the Royal Oak, waited until the bar opened, got three pints of Guinness and sat near the fire.
“Seawright was in Larne yesterday,” Matty said as he lit up a smoke.
“Tell Todd. You’re to forward all tips or information to his team at Special Branch,” I said.
“What about the evidence we gained illegally?” Crabbie asked.
“What evidence?”
“Breaking into Shane Davidson’s apartment.”
“We didn’t gain any evidence, except about his really quite good musical tastes.”
He had a point though. When I typed my report should I mention the fact that a man I’d had a homosexual dalliance with had implied that Shane also had the occasional homosexual dalliance? Did that mean that Shane was a homosexual? Were Sean and Bobby more than just good friends? Did any of this have a bearing on the case?
On reflection it probably did, but how to broach it?
“I’ll tell them. I’ll say that I had ‘an opportunity to examine Shane Davidson’s flat and found nothing of interest’. If he asks me how I’ll tell him the stupid wee shite left his door open. Don’t worry, I’ll leave you out of it, Crabbie.”
Crabbie looked hurt. “You don’t have to take the fall for me. I’m old enough and ugly enough to look after myself.”
“Nobody’s taking the fall for anybody. Come, let’s drink up.”
We swallowed our Guinnesses and went back to the station. I closed my office door and laid out the blue paint strips on my desk.
Klein blue. Sapphire. Persian blue. Midnight blue. Columbia blue. Indigo. I lit a cig. I swam in blue. I tripped on blue.
I sat there for a while and then I swiped the strips off my desk into the wastepaper basket.
I typed up my report mentioning that I had “followed Shane to a public lavatory where suspected homosexual cottaging took place”.
My report was nine pages long. I showed it to McCrabban and he thought it was fine. I showed it to Sergeant McCallister and he thought there was a distinct sarcastic tone that I should probably remove.
I faxed it anyway. At lunchtime I saw Todd on BBC Northern Ireland news which was more than I had ever managed to achieve — so perhaps the powers that be were right in firing me.
“His dad’s a viscount,” Sergeant Burke told me over bangers and mash in the Oak. “He has three older brothers and if they all die and he outlives them he’ll become Lord Todd of Ballynure.”
“Seems like the sort of cunt who would do precisely that,” I muttered.
After lunch I went to get a haircut. Anything but work on that bloody Ulster Bank fraud case. After a murder investigation all other cases were anticlimactic.
Carrick was a goddamn mess.
There were two more TO LET signs in empty shop windows, three stores had been boarded up completely and the library had a notice in the window that said “Book Sale! New, Old, Fiction and Non Fiction! Thousands of
