‘That’s right, Detective,’ O’Neill continued. ‘Swipe a lady’s handbag. Not too bad. But you better hope she doesn’t grab you. You may have to smack her a few times, just to get away. I mean, hey, she grabbed you. Judges tend to not really go for that though. Help me with the maths here, Kearney. What does theft plus assault equal? Two years? Four? Hey Janty, you any good at maths?’
Silence.
‘No. I didn’t think so. ’Cause if you were, you’d have known better. And you know what else, Detective, whenever I am going to smack some auld doll I like to make sure she’s not the sister of anyone important — like, say, the frigging Lord Mayor.’
Janty mumbled to himself in the back, ‘Fuck sake.’
‘Oh. You didn’t know? That’s right, Janty. The Lord Mayor’s sister.’ O’Neill laughed out loud. ‘You definitely didn’t do your homework on this one, son.’
The lady had had her bag snatched in the Clifton Street car park. Truth was she only saw a blur of white tracksuit and the car park didn’t have CCTV. The attendant’s description matched Morgan. They could charge him but it wouldn’t get a conviction. Half the hoods in Belfast were wearing a white tracksuit that day. Janty had been two streets away when he saw a PSNI Land Rover and bolted. Uniform caught him but he was clean so unless they could get something out of him now, they wouldn’t sniff a charge. The PPS would take one look at it and tell them to wise up.
O’Neill kept on at Morgan. ‘Snatching a bag in broad daylight — you must be one dopey fucker. This is the twenty-first century, Janty. There’s CCTV everywhere. Did you want to be famous? Was that it? Couldn’t get on X Factor, so thought you’d go for World’s Dumbest Criminals. Obviously you don’t watch CSI either though, eh Janty?’
Silence.
‘That handbag will have left traces all over you. There’s all that technology now. We take you to the station, shine the blue light on you, you’re going to light up like a Christmas tree. A regular old Papa Smurf.’
O’Neill was bullshitting, trying to sow some doubt, to get beneath Morgan’s street persona.
‘By the time we get to the station though, Janty, it’s going to be all over. We’ll have you then and nothing you say then will make a bit of difference. You need to start talking, Janty. And I mean now.’
‘No comment.’ A mumble from the back.
‘Buuuurrrraghl’ O’Neill shouted, like a game-show buzzer. ‘Wrong answer.’
Janty was sticking to the golden rule. The one that stretched across the city, crossing every Peace Wall and all the old divides. From the Ballysillan to Ballymacarrett, from the New Lodge to the Short Strand — you didn’t talk to peelers.
‘Try again, Janty.’
Silence.
‘The strong silent type. That’s what I thought.’
O’Neill turned right off Millfield and steered the car up the Shankill Road. The Shankill was the heart of Protestant Belfast and had been a stronghold for Loyalist paramilitaries during the Troubles. It wasn’t the best place for a young Catholic from the New Lodge to be hanging out. O’Neill knew it, so did Janty. Almost instantly the playful atmosphere in the car started to darken. The eighteen year old got more nervous as the red, white and blue kerbstones rolled by and they got deeper into the Shankill.
‘Where the fuck are yous taking me?’
O’Neill ignored the question and continued his monologue.
‘No comment. Do you hear this, Kearney? This one thinks he’s some kind of criminal mastermind. Are you some kind of criminal mastermind, Janty? Is that what it is? ‘Cause that’s who no comment is for. Wee hoods from the New Lodge? No comment is not for you. Right now, commenting is the only thing you need to be doing. Commenting’s the only thing that’ll stop us turfing your arse out of this car in the middle of the Shankill.’
O’Neill paused, letting the situation sink in.
‘Wait a minute, Detective. I’ve got it!Janty is a criminal mastermind. He knows even if he gets done for this, it’ll only be another stretch in Young Offenders. He’s only seventeen, after all.’ O’Neill paused, looking in the rearview mirror. ‘You’re still only seventeen, aren’t you, Janty?’
Silence.
‘Shit. You’re eighteen? They grow up so fast these days, Ward. You’re in with the big boys now, Janty. Forget Young Offenders — all that playground stuff. This is the real McCoy. Guys from Sandy Row. Tiger’s Bay. Bet they can’t wait to get their hands on a fresh wee Fenian like you.’
Morgan’s eyes darted from side to side as they drove further into the Shankill. Union Jacks saluted from lamp-posts. The car pulled up at a set of traffic-lights beneath a large mural. A 20-foot masked gunman stared into the car. During the seventies this was the home of the Shankill Butchers, a loyalist gang that used a black taxi to abduct Catholics. They drove them outside the city and decapitated them with a meat cleaver. There was a certain mythical edge to the Shankill.
‘You stole that purse, didn’t you, Janty?’
Hesitation. ‘No comment.’
O’Neill was getting close. He could feel it.
He sighed in mock resignation. He slowed the car and pulled over. On the opposite side of the street the Regal Bar stood between a Sean Graham bookmakers and an off-licence. Black paint flaked off the walls. Four men stood outside smoking. Half-drunk pints sat along the window-ledge. They clocked the car as soon as it pulled up and started glaring across. Janty could feel their eyes boring into the car.
‘OK, Janty. If you don’t want to talk we’ll just have to let you go.’ O’Neill reached back and opened the rear door of the Mondeo.
‘I’m not fucking going anywhere.’ His voice was almost a yelp.
‘Come on, Janty. Wise up. Sure you’ll be halfway down the road before they get near you.’
The group outside the pub saw the door open and became more agitated. One man ducked back inside. The Troubles weren’t so long gone that three men in an unknown car didn’t reek of something.
‘You see, Janty, it’s like that Van Morrison song. Things have changed. We don’t beat people up any more. We just talk to you and if you don’t want to talk, we let you go.’ O’Neill sang to himself, laughing. ‘Did your mama not tell you, there’d be days like this?’
The gang outside the pub had been joined by two more men, both of whom had tattooed forearms. The drinkers were gesturing towards the car, explaining the situation.
O’Neill leaned back and shouted out of Janty’s door: ‘Orange bastards!’
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Morgan said. High-pitched. Desperate.
The gang of men started making their way across the street towards the car.
‘Ah, don’t worry about us, Janty. They might drag you out of the back, but we’ll get away OK.’
The men picked their way through the traffic, stopping cars, getting nearer the Mondeo. Janty had backed up across the seat, as far from the open door as possible. A tattooed arm reached into the car, trying to grab hold of his feet.
‘All right! All right! It was me. I done her,’ he screamed, kicking out at the hands.
O’Neill lifted the clutch, peeling rubber as the Mondeo shot off down the road. The car left an empty space that the rest of the men seemed to tumble into.
Two years later, thumbing through the file, O’Neill wished Laganview was that easy. There was no one he could lean on. No one to apply a bit of pressure to. Hell, he didn’t even have a name.
He walked into the coffee room and poured himself the third cup of the day. It was still only 8.30 a.m.
In the office next door DI Ward hunted through the bottom drawer of a steel filing cabinet. He pulled out a series of black notebooks, the ones he’d used in the eighties, back when he was in uniform.
He was looking for William Spender, the developer at Laganview. He knew he was in there somewhere. It was a complaint; although nothing ever came of it. Ward had been sent to interview him over allegations that he had threatened one of his neighbours. Something to do with an extension.