Joyce again. Dubliners snow. The snow general all over Ireland. Falling on Coronation Road and Carrick Castle and all over County Antrim.
Falling on the grave the honest men of Milltown Cemetery were digging for Mairéad Farrell.
And on the grave that a bad man of unknown origin was digging for Elena Deauville.
12: THE ANGRY FATHER
The next morning Lawson came into my office with a file.
“What’s this?”
“Remember you asked me to look into all the recent heroin overdoses?”
“Yeah.”
“Here’s one for you that I missed initially. In Bangor last November young lad called Joshua Redmond has what in the papers is called a cocaine overdose. But nobody dies from a cocaine overdose – very few anyway – so I looked into the case. He actually died from a cocaine–heroin speedball. Father had an angry outburst at the funeral ‘against drug dealers and their protectors’. Said they should all be killed. Few days later our friend Francis Deauville is told to leave Bangor by the UDA and the UVF.”
“Tell me about this angry father.”
“Lorry driver. Criminal record for GBH. Six three and in one of the mugshot photos he had prominent sideburns.”
“Tell me about the GBH.”
“Bar fight in Newry four years ago. Put a bloke in the hospital with a broken collar bone and another man with a fractured neck.”
“He beat up two men?”
“Yup.”
“Tell me about the kid.”
“The kid was only fifteen. The parents were divorced and he was living with his mother in a different part of Bangor from his dad.”
“It’s got the feel of a wild goose hunt. Let’s go see him anyway.”
Beemer to Bangor through the North Down suburbs. A gentle part of the province with the nickname: “The Surrey of Northern Ireland”.
Mr Redmond’s flat, however, was in the Kilcooley Estate, which judging from the terrifying murals of gunmen everywhere was firmly in the control of the UDA.
Redmond’s place wasn’t hard to find: it was the one with the big rig parked outside.
Doorbell.
Game faces.
Barking Alsatian dog.
“Who the fuck is it?”
“It’s the police. Carrickfergus RUC.”
“Is this about my road tax?”
“No, it’s about Francis Deauville.”
He opened the door and kicked the dog behind him into a living room where it came to the window and salivated, growled and barked at us. Redmond was a big, hairy man who looked like Giant Haystacks, the wrestler from off the telly without Haystacks’s charm and charisma. Bereaved father, though, so I was prepared to cut him a lot of slack.
“We’re homicide detectives looking into Francis Deauville’s death,” I said.
“That scumbag?”
“You knew he was dead then?”
“Oh yes, I knew. Had a few beers that night.”
“After your son died you threatened to kill the drug dealers who sold him the heroin.”
“I did,” he said grimly. “But I didn’t kill that fucker Deauville. Wish I had. Wish I’d thought of it.”
“Where were you last Wednesday night?”
“France, driving me lorry.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Mais oui. Let me show you the paperwork.”
He showed us the paperwork and yes he was in France at a weigh station in Dijon at midnight on the night of the killing.
“How do these weigh stations work?”
“You have to be there in person. They check your licence and weigh your vehicle.”
I didn’t even have to look at flight schedules to see that it was impossible to get from Dijon to Belfast in the time available. Mr Redmond was not the killer.
“What do you think?” he asked snatching the documentation back.
“You have a pretty good alibi,” I said. “Maybe you hired someone to do it?”
“Do you have any children, Inspector Duffy?”
“A little girl. Emma. Not yet one.”
He nodded from big sad brown eyes. “Wish I had killed Deauville. He was filth in human form. Off the record?”
“Off the record.”
“If you find the killer tell me who it is and I’ll buy him a drink,” he said, his voice cracking.
I looked at Lawson, but Lawson was seeing what I was seeing. This was the face of an innocent man unless he too had rehearsed this scene for the benefit of the police, which it must be said, some people do.
“I’m really sorry about your son,” I said and he could see that I was.
“Off the record again?”