The Rage (14 page)

‘Busy man.’

‘When the game was in full flow the banks were borrowing billions to lend to the right sort of people – no one could lose. Then—’ she flicked an index finger at the chessboard and the king made a clattering noise as he toppled over, scattering pawns – ‘pop goes the bubble.’

‘He must have had something left. This place is worth a fortune.’

‘This house – he got a mortgage of four million, then he shopped around and got two more mortgages against the same property, for the same amount. Total – twelve million.’

‘Didn’t anyone check?’

‘A banker, a lawyer, a pillar of society – start asking questions and he might take his business elsewhere.’

‘The smart fellas, a friend of mine calls them,’ Tidey said.

‘That was small change. He had tens of millions – something like a hundred and forty million – invested in property deals. All borrowed – and borrowed against bank shares that aren’t worth a cent. It’ll never be paid back. Then there’s the fraud – Sweetman and his buddies, switching billions from bank to bank, to keep the auditors in the dark, writing up transfers as deposits, to boost share price. That’s before you come to the tax dodges – the guy could have written an encyclopedia of scams.’

‘He wasn’t looking at a slap on the wrist, then.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

Tidey smiled. ‘He had something to sell? Maybe someone to sell?’

‘That was the plan. As soon as Sweetman knew the game was up he called the Revenue and the Financial Regulator. At the time he was murdered he was working on a deal.’

‘So, the murder could have been to shut him up?’

‘Possible, but improbable. These people, if they’re faced with a threat they bribe someone or they hire a lawyer to make a deal.’

‘People who had everything – they lost it, their reputations in flitters, maybe even expecting a call from the Fraud Squad. Could be someone went off the deep end.’

‘I can see these people smashing Sweetman’s fancy chessboard over his head – what I can’t see is any of them linking up with a mate and finding a hoodie and an automatic pistol.’

Tidey crossed the room and stood looking up at the large painting over the fireplace. Unlike the other paintings in the room, it was contemporary, an almost photographic reproduction of a modern racing scene under a faultless blue sky. Emmet Sweetman stood beside a light brown horse, holding the reins, the pride of the winning owner glowing in his face as he smiled out into his living room. Behind him, a couple of dozen revellers cheered, most of them waving champagne glasses.

‘Butter wouldn’t melt,’ Cheney said.

Tidey stared at the faces in the painting, every one of them proud, confident, no shadow of doubt in their world. They must have felt like they could get away with anything.

Christ sake, missus, leave the fucking kid alone
.

Turlough McGuigan tried to focus, to block out the kid’s howls, the sound of the mother’s hand smacking the back of the kid’s matchstick legs. He was walking slowly through the Doonbeg shopping centre. He seldom used the place, although it was within easy reach of his home. The ceiling was low, the tiled floor dirty and cracked, the atmosphere oppressive.

The housing estate surrounding the shopping centre was just as tatty. A monster estate – vast, ugly and unloved. The shopping centre was a sprawling two-storey building that looked from the outside like something designed by a specialist in fortified artillery emplacements. It was an embassy installed by outside forces, representing the country of commerce, built with an undisguised hostility towards an alien environment. The people of the housing estate needed the services the centre provided, the country of commerce needed the profit that came with trade. In more salubrious neighbourhoods, shopping centres might pose as cathedrals of consumerism, offering to upgrade the shopper’s self-image. Here, there was no attempt to pretend this was anything other than an exchange of goods and money.

The shopping centre was always busy, always noisy, and there always seemed to be some stressed woman with pursed lips beating her kid with passionless anger.

Focus
, Turlough McGuigan told himself.

‘You ever hear the expression, “Hesitate, too late”?’

The thug leader had smiled when he said it, back in the coffee shop. He knew about that. He knew about everything.

After a robbery a couple of years back, Turlough McGuigan’s Protectica bosses organised a series of morale-boosting seminars. The robbery was a stupid one, a small thing – two wiseguys knocked over a carrier, kicked him in the face and did a runner with a couple of bags, not more than fifteen grand. The guy who ran the seminar was named Finbarr something, full of one-liners.
It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility . . . If you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail . . . Never let good enough be enough . . . The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in war . . . Excuses are for losers
.

And that one,
Hesitate, too late
.

‘If it looks like enemy action, behave accordingly – don’t wait for written confirmation. Hesitate, too late.’

In the Doonbeg coffee shop, the thug leader told Turlough McGuigan, ‘My information says if I walk up to your guys when they come out of the bank they’ll flatten me. Before I get to explain the situation they’ll start punching alarm buttons and I’m face down, spitting blood.’ He leaned closer. ‘What we need is someone who makes them hesitate. Someone they’ll listen to as he lays out the facts, so they behave sensibly. That’s you.’

Turlough and the thug leader had watched two uniformed Protectica guys – Mick Shine and Paudie McFadden – get out of the van and go into the shopping centre. Now, minutes later, McGuigan watched the two come out of the Doonbeg branch of Bank of Ireland. Both men were helmeted, toughened Perspex face shields tight down over their eyes, armoured vests over their dark green uniforms. Mick was the primary carrier, two black-and-chrome bags of cash in his left hand, two in his right. Behind Mick and two steps to one side, Paudie was the mace – carrying a bag in his left hand, his right hand casually poised close to the extendable baton at the side of his belt. Davey Minogue was podman today, locked into the back of the Protectica van.

Turlough McGuigan had to resist looking back over his shoulder, to where he’d left the thug leader standing casually near the exit. He drew a deep breath and took the mobile out of his pocket.

Mick Shine saw him first, recognised him, inclined his head in a questioning motion. Paudie McFadden slowed at the sight of their depot manager. McGuigan stood in their path and tried to get his face to relax.

‘We’re being watched. Stay calm, do nothing.’

Apart from a sudden tension in their stance, the two didn’t react. ‘It’s very serious,’ McGuigan said, ‘but I think we can handle it. Fella gave me this, told me to show you.’ McGuigan held up the phone and thumbed a button. ‘That’s Davey’s house.’

‘What the fuck?’ Mick Shine said.

‘Stay calm – I think we’ll get out of this OK as long as we stay calm.’

‘How did—’

McGuigan thumbed the button and a picture of another house appeared on the screen and Mick Shine shut up. McGuigan thumbed the button again and held the phone towards Paudie McFadden. ‘Your house, right?’ Then he showed them both the photo of Deirdre, with the thug in the Superman T-shirt holding her breast. ‘That’s my wife – they’ve got her right now.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ McFadden said.

‘Stay calm.’

McFadden swore.

Mick Shine said, ‘Are you in on this?’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’

‘What do we do?’ McFadden said.

‘Are they in my house?’ Mick Shine said.

‘I don’t know, I think so. They’ve got my wife. They know where we all live, they—’

‘Jesus, Jesus.’ Behind the Perspex shield, anger and fear contorted Mick Shine’s face.

‘If we don’t stay calm, do as we’re told – these fuckers are not kidding.’

‘What do they want us to do?’ McFadden said.

McGuigan was looking at Mick Shine. ‘Mick? You OK?’

None of the shoppers paid any attention to the three men talking quietly. McGuigan could hear the howling kid, taking another whack from his mother.

Mick Shine said, ‘Whatever – we do whatever they want.’

McGuigan nodded. ‘I don’t see how we can do anything else. Play it cool, we get out of this OK, our families too. Just – I’ll walk ahead, you follow me outside. OK?’

They stood there silently for maybe ten seconds, then Turlough McGuigan said again, ‘OK?’

‘Let’s go, then,’ Mick Shine said.

On the way towards the exit they passed the stressed-out mother, her son silent now, clutching her skirt, an ice cream in his other hand.

‘That house, two up from this one – big sunroom stuck onto the side of it – guess how much it cost, three years ago?’

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Bob Tidey said.

‘Six million – six and a bit.’

Bob Tidey and Rose Cheney were outside the Sweetman home, looking back at it from beside their car. From here, the house had the look of an old-fashioned country hotel. Pillars flanking the entrance, rose bushes off to the left, cast-iron and dark wood benches underneath both the bay windows. And a wide, colourful welcome mat across which Sweetman’s killers had stepped.

‘Know how much it’s worth now?’

‘A lot less than six million.’

‘Less than three – two million, eight hundred thousand. That’s what they’re asking, and they won’t get it.’

‘Tough.’

‘Were you ever tempted to get into that game?’

‘On my salary?’ Tidey said.

‘One fella I worked with had three houses – big ones, too – set out in flats. A fair few guards got into that game. In the good old days, all you needed to qualify for a big loan was a pulse.’

‘Holly – my ex – and I – a house was somewhere to live, not something to invest in.’

‘I thought we were missing out – the newspapers were forever saying you had to be a fool not to get in on the action. My husband was the cautious one. I still feel a bit like I missed a big party.’

‘A big orgy,’ Tidey said. ‘Where everyone got the clap.’ He tossed the crime scene photos on the back seat. ‘You’ve got files for me to look at?’

Cheney smiled. ‘Back at the station – by the ton.’

When Turlough McGuigan and the security guys were almost at the exit, Vincent Naylor turned and faced out onto the shopping centre car park, looking towards where Noel and Kevin were waiting in the black Lexus. He put his hand on top of his head for a moment. Then he stood with both hands in his pockets, one hand gripping the small pistol.

Noel already had the Lexus engine running. Now, the car motored slowly across the fifty feet that separated it from the parked Protectica van.

Vincent turned back and watched Turlough McGuigan lead the two security men out into the sunlight and across the pavement towards the van.

‘You’ll see a black Lexus coming up slowly,’ Vincent had told him. ‘The boot will be unlatched. It stops, you swing the lid up, you tell the guys what to do.’

Now, Vincent watched as the Lexus eased to a stop. There was an awkward moment as the two Protectica guards paused. Their training and instinct told them to knock on the van’s sliding hatch and to sling the money inside when podman Davey Minogue opened up. Instead, their faces grim, they followed Turlough McGuigan’s instructions and dropped the bags of money into the boot of the Lexus. McGuigan slammed the boot shut.

‘Here, you’ll need this.’ Turlough McGuigan held out the mobile to Mick Shine. Behind the Protectica van, the black Lexus was moving slowly away.

‘You know we’re not allowed private mobiles on the job.’

‘Fucking take it. It’s been disabled, you can’t call anyone. Show Davey the picture of his house. You get back in the van, you tell Davey not to fuck about and you move on to the next collection.’

‘The next—’

‘Next stop, Harding Avenue, Ulster Bank – I’ll meet you there.’

Mick Shine looked at Paudie McFadden, then back at Turlough McGuigan. ‘This—’

‘They’re not finished yet.’

McFadden said, ‘Jesus, these—’

Turlough McGuigan’s voice quivered. ‘We don’t have
time
for this. Right now Davey’s worrying why there’s no package coming through the hole. You wait too long, he gets worried and trips the flare – how are you going to live with what happens to your family?’

A minute later, Turlough McGuigan was sliding into the red Megane, the thug leader at the wheel. At the exit from the car park a woman in a ten-year-old Fiesta cut in front of them and the thug leader called her a cunt. When he got going he made good time and before long he was tucked in behind the Protectica van, ten minutes away from the next collection. Turlough McGuigan looked across and the thug leader was smiling.

‘Won’t be long now, Turlough – chin up.’

Inside the Protectica van, Mick Shine was driving and Paudie McFadden was riding shotgun. Davey Minogue, the podman, was perched on the jump seat at an angle to the lockers that lined the back of the van. He was small for a security man, but fit and bulky, with a bald head and a neat goatee beard. His head was thrust forward between his co-workers and his voice was an urgent hiss. ‘Remember your training—’