Collusion

10

The elevator doors slid open and Lennon stepped inside. Susan, the divorcee from upstairs, stood there with her daughter Lucy huddling against her.

Susan’s face brightened. ‘And how’s you this morning?’ she asked, reaching out to stroke his upper arm.

‘Not bad,’ Lennon said, returning the smile.

Susan had flirted with him from the moment she moved in a year ago. She was attractive, he couldn’t deny it, but he’d never responded. It took him six months to figure out why: she was a good woman bringing up a child on her own. A child around the same age as the daughter he’d abandoned. She didn’t need a bastard like him to mess her around. Susan deserved a decent man who’d treat her well, who’d look after her and Lucy. Lennon knew that wasn’t him. He’d only let her down.

Sometimes, when she’d lean her shoulder against his in the lift, or when she’d brush her hand against his as he held a door for her, he thought about telling her so. He considered telling her he was no good, that she should stop the flirting, it could only lead to hurt for her and her daughter.

But what was the point?

‘You look thoughtful,’ she said. ‘Busy day today?’

‘Something like that. A big interview.’

She nodded and smiled. He’d never told her he was a cop. The elevator door swished open. He stepped aside to let her out first. Her hand ran down his sleeve and glanced off his fingers.

‘See you,’ she said.

He smiled in return. Outside the lift, he stooped to fiddle with his shoelace so that she could get some distance on him. Distance would be best for all concerned.

‘You have friends in high places, Dandy,’ Lennon said.

Rankin crossed one slippered foot over the other and stared at Lennon from the hospital bed. ‘Don’t call me that,’ he said. ‘Anyone calls me that to my face, and anyone I hear of calling me that behind my back, they get sorted. Right?’

‘Sorted,’ Lennon echoed, a laugh thinning the word as he spoke it. He took a plastic cup from the stack on the bedside locker and opened the bottle of Lucozade that stood beside them. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

He didn’t wait for an answer before filling the cup. Three swallows drained it of the fizzing orange liquid, and he filled it again. He’d headed out again last night, and the late hours had started to catch up on him. A boost to his blood sugar wouldn’t go amiss.

Dandy Andy Rankin looked resplendent in his silk pyjamas and dressing gown. No hospital duds for him. If not for the wires snaking out from beneath his pyjama top, connecting him to the beeping monitor at his bedside, he’d have looked like an aristocratic gentleman enjoying a late morning. Albeit with a Red Hand of Ulster tattoo peeking out from between the buttons on his chest. The graze on his cheek from when he’d hit the ground behind Sylvia’s café had started to scab over. A cut on his lip suggested that Crozier at least got a decent punch in before Rankin knifed him.

Lennon took another swig of Lucozade and went to the window. They’d given Rankin a nice quiet private room, the kind of room only those with the best medical insurance could afford, while the rest of Belfast’s sick and injured had to make do with the NHS. Being a scumbag had its perks. The only downside was a police guard on your door.

‘Like I was saying,’ Lennon continued, ‘friends in high places. I’m told you’re going to cooperate, which is awful good of you. If it’d been up to me, you’d be facing two counts of attempted murder. I’d have plenty to make it stick. But your pals have persuaded me to put GBH to the Public Prosecution Service. Aren’t you the lucky boy?’

‘Luck’s got nothing to do with it, son,’ Rankin said, a slight lisp lending his speech a greasy effeminacy. ‘It pays to befriend the right people.’

‘You’re not their friend,’ Lennon said, turning from the window. ‘You’re a tout. You’re a commodity. They’ll shit on you the second you’re no more use to them.’

‘That’s another name I don’t like.’

‘I don’t give a flying fuck what you like,’ Lennon said. He put the cup on the windowsill and dragged the vinyl-covered armchair from the corner to face Rankin’s bed. It wheezed displaced air as Lennon sat down, an odour of stale urine coming with it. ‘You tout for Special Branch. That’s why they stepped in for you, asked me to soften the blow. That’s what got you off the hook.’

‘I’m not off any hook,’ Rankin said. ‘I’m still going to do time, aren’t I?’

‘Not the sort of time you should be doing,’ Lennon said. ‘You’re getting off easy, and you know it. I agreed to the GBH against my better judgement. Now what are you going to do for me?’

‘Sweet fuck all,’ Rankin said, smiling, his eyebrow arched. ‘Special Branch tells the likes of you to jump, you jump. Don’t make out you’re doing me any favours, son. You’re just doing what you’re told.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t sent the file to the PPS yet. A lot can change between now and then.’

Rankin turned his face to the window. ‘Fuck yourself.’

Lennon leaned forward. ‘Course, I have my own contacts among your boys. And Crozier’s. I might say the wrong thing to one of them. I might let something slip. And I know how you boys talk amongst yourselves. Rumours spread like crabs in a whorehouse. Next thing you know you’ve got a gun in your—’

‘Don’t threaten me,’ Rankin said. He turned his gaze back to Lennon, his eyes blank like a cadaver’s. ‘Don’t do it. You can’t scare me. You’re not the only one with contacts. I know all sorts of boys in all sorts of places, some of the mon the other side. Some of them aren’t on ceasefire. Some of them would love to have a crack at a peeler, score a goal for their fucking lost cause. You get me, son?’

Lennon didn’t reply.

Rankin’s eyes came back to life. ‘Right, now we’ve shown each other how big our cocks are, let’s try being a wee bit civil about it, eh? You want to ask me some questions, go on ahead. Maybe I’ll answer them, maybe I won’t. Fair enough?’

Lennon held his stare for a few more seconds. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘What was the aggro between you and Crozier about? Off the record. You’re not under caution.’

‘That cunt’s been doing business with the Lithuanians.’

‘We know that already,’ Lennon said. ‘Everyone knows that. You’ve been doing business with them too.’

‘Not like this.’ Rankin shook his head. ‘I buy and sell with them, the usual trade, move girls about, sometimes get the odd bit of blow off them. They’re useful now and then, but that’s all. But we keep them out of our areas, them and the rest of the foreigners. Let the taigs have them for neighbours if they want, but keep them off my streets.’

Too late, Lennon tried to hide his anger at the word. It had been a while since anyone had called him ‘taig’ to his face.

Rankin paused, registering the offence. ‘What, you’re the other side of the house, are you?’

‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Lennon said.

‘Best cop I ever knew was a taig,’ Rankin said. ‘Put away a lot of people, that boy, including me. Twice.’

Lennon ignored Rankin’s clumsy attempt at prettying up his bigotry. ‘You were telling me about Crozier and the Lithuanians.’

‘Aye, right. Rodney Crozier wasn’t just doing a bit of trading with the Liths, he was getting into bed with them in a big way. See, when Michael McKenna got his brains blown out a few months back, that left a big gap.’ Rankin stopped talking and tilted his head. ‘What?’

Lennon’s jaw had tightened at McKenna’s name. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

Rankin studied him for a moment before continuing. ‘Anyway, the Liths started moving in to his old places on the Lower Falls, the apartments he’d been running girls out of, but they needed muscle on the street.’

‘Not Republican muscle?’

‘No, see, McKenna’s higher-ups wouldn’t let their boys take up the slack. They’re too busy pretending to be politicians these days, they don’t want to get their hands dirty. They don’t want any of McKenna’s old shit sticking to them when it’s election time, you understand?’

Lennon nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Now, the Liths can’t go too deep into that part of Belfast, but those places around Broadway are wide open for them. So they’ve got Crozier’s boys doing the donkey work, and he’s getting a big slice for his trouble. He’s raking it in, and I’m left swinging.’

‘Surely there’s plenty to go around,’ Lennon said.

‘But he’s getting all the traffic off the motorway. All the punters from Lisburn, Craigavon, Lurgan, Dungannon, they just turn off at the roundabout and they’ve got all the action they want.’

‘So what was the meet with Crozier about?’

‘To see if I could talk sense to him,’ Rankin said. ‘Fuck knows why I thought he’d listen. He always was a thick cunt. All mouth, the big man so long as he had his boys to back him up. I thought if I got him on his own, just the two of us, we could be reasonable about it.’

‘Didn’t work out that way,’ Lennon said.

Rankin clucked, smiled, and raised his hands. ‘Didn’t, did it? I had to try something, though. I even went to my handlers a while back to see if you lot would do something. I told them I’d do anything they wanted to get Crozier shut down, give them any dirt on him I could find. They said no, there wasn’t enough men or money to go after him like that. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Rodney Crozier was touting as well.’ Rankin fixed Lennon with a long hard stare. ‘Is he?’ he asked.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lennon said. ‘You know as well as I do C3 tell us sweet fuck all.’

‘C3? That’s a fucking stupid name. Makes them sound like a car. They’re still Special Branch, same as before. So if you can’t tell me about Rodney Crozier, then tell me something else.’

‘What?’

‘Why’d you flinch when I said Michael McKenna’s name?’

‘I didn’t.’

A smile crawled along Rankin’s lips. ‘Yes you did. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, son.’

Lennon stood. ‘I think that’s all for now.’

‘Hang on,’ Rankin said, raising a finger at Lennon, his eyes narrowing. ‘You’re the cop that took up with McKenna’s niece, aren’t you? She had a child to you, didn’t she? That fairly stirred the shit among his boys. I heard they were ready for doing her, only McKenna wouldn’t have it.’

Lennon leaned over Rankin until he could smell the stale remains of his aftershave. ‘Keep your mouth off that,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t surprised when I heard she fucked off out of it,’ Rankin said. ‘Took the child with her, too.’

Lennon straightened. ‘What do you know about that?’

‘Only what I heard. Like I said, I know boys on the other side. They talk.’

‘What did they say?’

Rankin grinned. ‘I’ve said too much already, son. Best I shut my mouth now.’

Lennon leaned on the bed, his face inches from Rankin’s. ‘What did they say?’

Rankin mimed zipping his mouth shut, his eyes twinkling.

Lennon grabbed the lapels of his dressing gown and pulled him close so their noses almost touched. ‘What did they say?’

‘Easy, son,’ Rankin said, smiling. He put a hand on Lennon’s shoulder. ‘I’m only winding you up. They didn’t say much, it was all a bit confused, like.’

Lennon released the lapels and let Rankin sit back. ‘Go on.’

‘Everyone thought she just got the frighteners when her uncle got hit, and that whole feud kicked off. But then I heard some other stuff, just rumours, you know?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like it wasn’t a feud,’ Rankin said. He smoothed his dressing gown over his chest. ‘Nobody could say for sure what it was, but it wasn’t a feud. Them three dissidents that blew themselves up had nothing to do with it, for one thing. What I heard, and don’t quote me, it was just the one man done it. Some fella just went clean buck mental and went after McKenna and McGinty and the lot of them.’

‘Bullshit,’ Lennon said. ‘There was an inquiry.’

Rankin laughed. ‘Since when did an inquiry prove anything? Anyway, that’s what I heard. Might be true, might not. But that’s not all.’

Lennon sighed. ‘Christ, just tell me.’

‘I heard the woman was mixed up in it, her and the wee girl. Your wee girl. Jesus, don’t tell me you didn’t know all this? Them Special Branch boys really don’t tell you fuck all, do they?’

Lennon’s heart fluttered. ‘Is that it?’

‘It’s all I heard,’ Rankin said.

Lennon backed towards the door, almost stumbled over the chair.

‘A thank-you would be nice,’ Rankin called after Lennon as he retreated from the room.