Blonde short hair under her hood.
No make up. No boyfriend.
Good looking in a fresh farmers market non-plastic country type of way.
Tough. Smart. But alone on a shit murder case.
“Your victim’s name is Tony Molony, age 24, from Cabra on the North side of Dublin. Ran with the Maddox tribe. Formerly employed as an enforcer, hit man, face smacker, bone breaker. A charming guy, unhappily married with 3 children. Had a mistress in Foxrock and a Russian boyfriend in Alicante. Worked out, took lots of dodgy steroids, banned vitamins and even dodgier sun-bed trips. Alive he looked like a muscle bound orange. Dead, he looks just dead.” McColl said this all in one go, totally devoid of emotion. “He has been dead around three days, tops.”
Her mouth dropped open.
She closed it immediately as it started to fill with the falling water.
“You don’t happen to know how he died?” she asked sarcastically.
McColl stared down at her and continued, “They cut off his balls. More than likely while he was still alive. Sewed them in his mouth. Comanche style. Then they burned out his eyes. Colombian style. Blow torch I would presume. They gave him a few thousand cuts with his own Spyderco Native Knife. Burned him some more with the blowtorch. ‘Bleed and Burn’ I believe they call it in the North Dublin Skanger lingo.” Again delivered like a shopping list from Dante’s local supermarket.
She had held it back when she was with the Vic.
But now she turned and threw up most of last night’s Meat Monster Pizza and a half bottle of Chilean Merlot.
What she desperately needed now was a whiskey.
“Shall I continue…” said McColl.
“Don’t let me stop you,” said Anne as she wiped her mouth with her handkerchief.
“He has been shot once in the head,” said McColl. “His throat has been cut and to top off a great day at the slaughter house, a large spike has been hammered through his left eye. The shooting, cutting and the burning where not done here. So you will not find much blood. The spiking is the last act. So it will have been done on the canal tow path while he was very much dead. It’s – how would Shakespeare have put it? – an artistic gesture, a dramatic warning.”
“Wow,” said Anne in spite of her self.
It was more or less word for word what was in her notes.
“You have played this game before.”
“Indeed I have,” said McColl. “And more importantly so have they.”
“They? So who, are they?” said Anne.
“Who might they be? What mastermind could have planned and executed this dastardly deed,” whispered McColl.
“Cut the fucking Shakespearian word games. Yes, who the fuck would do something like that?” said Anne pointing back at the corpse. She was starting to get annoyed as her case seemed to have spiralled out of control.
And going through her head, again and again for about the thousandth time, was, where the fuck was that smug bastard DC Evans?
“Yea, I know who killed your Vic. I know why they killed him. And I know why you are standing here in the cold rain while your partner is off having a warm wank.”
This really threw her out of her comfort zone.
“How? What the fu…” But she was too shocked to continue it.
“Can we get in out off the rain? Please?” McColl asked.
She nodded.
They went over to his hired Jaguar and sat in the comparative warmth out of the gale.
She sat staring ahead, feeling very uncomfortable sitting this close to a stranger.
All her training, all her life, was filled with the first command. ‘Thou shalt not get into cars with strangers.’ It was never ‘Thou shalt not get into bed with strangers’ which is all she had been doing since she was sixteen.
She felt a strong urge to smoke a cigarette.
Or chew gum or drink Vodka, or just do something.
McColl just stared out the Jag’s window.
“Molony was over here to do a job.”
“A job? You mean kill someone?”
“Yea, Kill, Top, Slot, or whatever the latest Andy McNab action word is for it these days.”
“The Hallorans brothers; Tommy and Willie. Big players on the drug scene in Dublin. Ran an army of cutthroats and skin the bags. North side gangland warlord stuff across Swords, Ballymun, Coolock.”
“You make them sound so romantic, so like the shit hole places we read about in Afghanistan.”
She said to lighten the tone.
It worked. McColl gave a tight smile.
“Afghanistan is civilized compared to these pumped-up lawless skin the bags.”
“So what are two – what did you call them, skin the bags? – doing in Basingstoke?” “Simples,” said McColl
“They are hiding. Well at least they where hiding." He continued, "Look, the drug scene in Dublin shifts more sand than Dollymount strand.”
Anne looked confused.
“Never mind, let’s just say its hard to see when the tide is in or out, except by counting the floating dead cats.”
“The body count,” said Anne surprising herself by getting it.
“Yea. Indeed. You are sharp as a tack,” he continued as dry as ever.
“Some big drug deal went pear shaped and the Hallorans brothers where no longer welcome hanging out with the in crowd. So they absconded to Alicante.”
“Alicante? Why not Hawaii or Bali?”
“No, Alicante is home from home for these skin the bags. People know who they are and are suitably shit scared. These guys are Warlords, scrotum royalty.”
“Oh! So they weren’t hiding then?”
“No, not then. Not until Maddox decided to remove them from this good earth on a permanent basis.”
“So that’s what the shootouts in Spain were all about?”
“Yes. It did, surprisingly, make the UK news for once. I was sent down to see what was going on, but by that time the Hallorans had done a runner.”
“To Basingstoke!” said Anne.
“Yea, balmy, sun-soaked palm tree-lined home of the stars, Basingstoke.”
“Where are they now?” asked Anne, sipping on the flask of whiskey McColl had given her. It was still bitter cold and still chucking down rain.
The police unit was finished and were packing up and moving on.
“The Hallorans are renting in one of those high-rise apartment blocks beside the Basingstoke railway station. And they hang out in a bar called -” he read from a bright pink card “- The Baz Bang Gang Bar.” He sighed and said, “Just lovely.”
“I know it,” said Anne “The Baz Bang Gang Bar: its on the Parade. It's a favourite haunt for the local Baz Gay community. Are they gay?”
“Gay, not these fucking two Neanderthals.”
Then he turned and looked at her.
“But they will fuck anything that moves on 2, 3 or 4 legs. Then kill it for fun. Think pumped up Polish steroid muscles, sun bed-tanned bodybuilder egos. Pink beach brain wear. You get the picture?”
“I think so,” said Anne. Not really getting it at all.
“Molony used a pistol, a Glock 17. Did you happen to find it?”
“No, nothing on the body or near by. It’s possible its in the canal. We can dredge it if you like.”
“Not my case remember,” McColl said taking back his whiskey.
“What are you really here after?” she finally brought her self to say. Turning now to look in his brooding brown eyes.
He stared at her a moment and then looked away and started tapping the steering wheel with his right index finger.
“Justice, I suppose I am here about justice. Molony was a punk, but he did not deserve that. Nobody deserves to end up like that.”
Anne felt like throwing up again. She controlled it and told him to get his ass down to the station.
“You can make out a full report. You seem to know all about their ritual killing games.”
She got out and headed for her own car.
He drove off at speed.
She did not like it but she had a feeling she knew exactly where he was going.
McColl was angry at himself for going to the crime scene as it served no professional purpose. He was annoyed at opening up himself to the girl.