Blood for Blood Read online

  Praise for J. M. SMYTH

  ‘Cross my bedraggled heart, just blew me to smithereens. Unbelievable book. Ferocious. Terrifying. Beautifully compassionate. And oh so wonderfully written.’

  Ken Bruen

  ‘Raw, harsh, merciless, as cold as ice and beyond all moral limits. Smyth stages his sinister hero Red Dock as the incarnation of evil with a perfidy that is hard to beat. Except, that is, by the reality that Smyth addresses in his novel: the huge scale of the abuse of children in Irish children’s homes in the name of church and state. This novel holds up a mirror to reality, but even by depicting absolute evil it can only begin to reveal the bottomless pit that opens up in the mirror.’

  Ulrich Noller, Funkhaus Europa

  ‘An appropriately fierce response to systemic abuse.’

  Tobias Gohlis, KrimiZEIT-Bestenliste

  ‘Smyth uses the crime genre to transport social wrongs in his home country. And he does it in a way you won’t easily forget.’

  Dietmar Jacobs, literaturkritik

  ‘Smyth is a febrile and original talent!’

  The Times

  ‘An absolutely dreadful book in the best sense of the word.’

  TW, Kaliber38–Leichenberg

  ‘Smyth is shiveringly superb!’

  Image Magazine

  ‘The main topic of this book, even before its crime element, is the appalling circumstances under which orphans in Irish children’s homes suffered. The Catholic Church had sinned against these young boys and girls so abominably that the Irish Prime Minister even apologised for the collective failure of society in 1999.’

  Hans Jörg Wangner, SZ

  ‘Smyth has written a short, fast-moving story that I’m sure will haunt me for a long time. Smyth can really write. He says a lot with no wasted words. Adrian McKinty has some rough stories to tell and he does it well but BLOOD FOR BLOOD is even stronger stuff. This is a book to be read and thought about. I recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery with characters like no other in any mystery I’ve yet to read.’

  Crime Always Pays

  First published 2016

  by Black & White Publishing Ltd

  29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL

  www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

  This electronic edition published in 2016

  ISBN: 978 1 78530 049 3 in EPub format

  ISBN: 978 1 78530 047 9 in paperback format

  Copyright © J. M. Smyth 2016

  The right of JM Smyth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Ebook compilation by Iolaire, Newtonmore

  An Everest of love for my darling wife Phyll, my soulmate since we were sixteen. To know you’re always with me is all I’ll ever need.

  And for my mum, Lily, and my granny, Maisie, the two greatest and most supportive influences in my life. If your examples were followed there wouldn’t be an unloved or neglected child on the planet.

  Author's Note

  The Catholic Church ran Irish orphanages for most of the twentieth century. In the 1990s they were exposed as the ‘gulags’ of Ireland. Justice was removed and there was nowhere to go for it. Some survivors meted out their own. The Irish prime minister made a statement in May 1999: ‘On behalf of the state and of all citizens of the state, the government wishes to make a sincere apology to victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.’

  Contents

  Title Page

  Author's Note

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Red Dock

  Picasso

  Red Dock

  11 Months Later

  Red Dock

  Lucille

  Acknowledgements

  RED DOCK

  Wanna be a millionaire? Then don’t work for a living. Fifty years of that crack and before you know it some joker’s digging a hole and lowering you into it. ‘Oh, he was such a nice man. He’ll be sorely missed.’ A load of bollocks. Take my advice: he who works last lasts longer.

  ‘Aye, well, it’s all right for you,’ I hear you say. ‘But how do we make a million?’ Fair question. You could try kidnapping, but I wouldn’t advise it. I’ve never seen one yet that hadn’t got something wrong with it. Grabbing the victim’s easy enough; collecting your wages is the hard part. Either the victim calls attention to himself by being unreasonable and trying to escape or there’s a lot of extra coming and going where you’re hiding the bastard, and the next thing you know the TV’s running it and some nosy neighbour’s saying to herself, ‘Here, hang on a minute,’ lifting the phone and it’s, ‘Fuck me, the cops are surrounding the place.’

  Nah, the only way to kidnap somebody is to get rid of them as soon as you grab them. No nosy neighbours, no hideout, no coming and going, nothing to worry about. These days it pays to be streamlined.

  So I told Charlie Swags that as soon as the baby was snatched, it was to be taken out of the city. (The last thing you want is some squealy kid knocking about the place.)

  Then I sent its mother a note; the usual stuff – NO COPS, BRING CASH (in this case a hundred grand) – and the following morning gave her a call. She had to be sitting with her hand on the phone if the speed of her was anything to go by.

  Here she was: ‘Yes? Yes? Hello? Hello?’

  She must’ve thought I was deaf. I could just imagine the lads there with her whispering, ‘For fuck’s sake, missus, will you give us a chance to get the trace going?’

  ‘Mrs Winters?’

  ‘Yes, this is Mrs Winters.’

  ‘You want your baby back, you bring the money to Kilreed today at two o’clock. Wait in the phone box outside the post office. And come alone.’

  It’s hard to tell from a few words, but I got the distinct impression she was suffering with her nerves. Maybe she wasn’t sleeping well.

  Of course you’re saying to yourself by now: how’s he gonna collect the money if he’s no baby to hand over? Simple: only kidnap when you want to drive the victim’s loved ones round the twist. As a diversionary tactic – never for money.

  Not that she had any. Not on her husband’s wages. She was probably driving him nuts with the ‘I want my baby’ routine. Y’know what women are like. He was probably wishing they were like tape recorders and came with a pause button.

  She wasn’t a bad-looking woman though: late twenties, popcorn hairstyle. Brave pair of tits on her too – I’ve seen smaller arses. Not that I fancied her. In women, I wear a size ten; she had to be a fourteen at least. My only interest in her was that her husband had got in Charlie Swags’s way, and I needed him to get in somebody else’s.

  So at two that afternoon I was in the attic office of a hotel, binoculars in hand, looking down at Mary Winters as she went
into the phone box in the village of Kilreed to take my call. She was looking very red around the eyes – probably something to do with the wallpaper paste Swags’s men had squirted into them when she’d stepped out of the lift of an underground car park and had junior snatched out of its carrycot. They’d mixed citric acid with the paste, by the way. They tell me Optrex is good for getting rid of it, but you need gallons of the stuff. A hospital’s better.

  ‘Turn left at the corner,’ I told her, ‘then left again at a sign that says “Whites”. Follow the lane till you come to a farmhouse.’

  I watched her arrive. Whites’ farmhouse was less than half a mile from where I was. She’d be bugged of course, and the law wouldn’t be far away, waiting to pounce when I handed over the baby. That’s how they’d be seeing it. They have training for this sort of carry-on, so they can get their man.

  She got out of her car, y’know, looking around the farmyard to see what the story was – no doubt expecting me to pop out from behind the barn or whatever – and heard what I wanted her to hear – the sound of her baby roaring and crying in the farmhouse, then the phone ringing just inside the open front door. I was giving her another little call to see how she was getting on.

  ‘Put down the attaché case and go up and get your child,’ I told her.

  After that I couldn’t tell you what happened exactly. I couldn’t see inside. But I’d say she went on in through the hall and looked up and saw an infant in a body harness dangling from the hatch into the attic, where I’d left it.

  She was very controlled, to be fair to her. No ‘Oh my God’s, or ‘Look at my poor baby’ crap. All I heard coming down the phone was a distracted wail of relief, then the sound of the case hitting the ground and her running up the stairs, the stepladder creaking as she climbed up to save her baby, only to find a doll dressed in the clothes it was last seen wearing, and her going into hysterics – which was nothing to the screams that came out of her when she climbed up into the attic and saw a recorder playing the tape I’d made of her baby crying and realised that she was going home alone – aaagghh! – and wailing, ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby? Where’s my bay … be …’ and breaking down in tears.

  Whether or not the case contained the cash, I couldn’t say. The law had no doubt come up with it for the occasion. They have contingency funds, y’know, for unforeseen eventualities.

  Anyway, I heard the clatter of her flying back downstairs to the phone, then coming at me again with her ‘Where’s my baby, where’s my baby? Please tell me where my baby is’ routine.

  ‘You were told not to involve the cops.’

  ‘But my husband’s a Guard. How could I not tell him?’

  He was a detective sergeant. Chilly Winters. One of the Garda Síochána’s finest. Trained to notice if his kid’d been kidnapped. He could notice whatever he liked as long as it wasn’t me.

  ‘I can’t show my face with him in on it.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? She’s his daughter. What was I supposed to do-oo?’

  ‘Find some way to keep him out of it.’

  ‘How could I? Tell me. Plea-ease. I’ll do anything you say.’

  ‘I’ll have a think and get back to you. I can’t say fairer than that. Bye now.’

  ‘No, wait. Tell me where my baby is. Please tell me where my baby is. Please. Please …’

  A monk’s fancy woman could have been breastfeeding it for all I knew.

  Oh, I meant to say, as far as their investigation was concerned, the Gardai would carry out their inquiries, you know the way they do – locate my vantage point as the only place the farmhouse could be seen from across the village rooftops by tracing the phone I was using, which had only one set of prints on it, belonging to a man called Ken Varden, who was connected to the hotel. That way they’d go after him instead of me. He had a beef against Chilly Winters and vice versa. Winters had reason to suspect him for this. Everything would fall into place. Except Ken Varden. He’d already fallen into another place.

  And Mary Winters is still waiting for me to get back to her.

  So forget kidnapping. There’s plenty of other ways to make money. If you’re prepared to do what I do: make your experiences work for you.

  As far as Mary Winters’ daughter was concerned, well, no point in wasting a perfectly good baby.

  And I had a personal use for it. One that had nothing to do with Charlie Swags or anybody else. The real reason I had taken it.

  Yeah, well, that’s the way it goes.

  I went to see my brother Conor about it.

  Conor was doing all right for himself – owned a thatched cottage at the gate to a long drive that led up to where he was having a big house built, horses and cattle in the fields, new motor at the door. Gorgeous.

  He was lunging a horse when I arrived. So I just leaned against the fence and enjoyed the feel of the place. I love watching horses. Maybe I’d have taken them up too if things had started off differently. I think it’s in the blood, y’know. Still, what with the old leg fucked, not much I could do about it now. If you saw me getting on a horse you’d think I’d been thrown by one. Odd how two guys from identical backgrounds can end up so far apart though. That’s what an accident of birth does for you, I suppose.

  Some horseman, my brother. In different circumstances I’d probably even be proud of him. Ah well, back to why I’d come.

  He unclipped the bay, slipped off its bridle and let it run loose.

  ‘Nice horse,’ I said.

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Red Dock’s the name.’

  ‘Conor Donavan. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m looking for a friend of mine – a girl I knew in London – by the name of Anne Donavan. The priest in the village said I’d find her here.’ It was bullshit. He couldn’t know her. She was a figment of my imagination. And I hadn’t seen a priest in years. Religion never added up for me.

  The only Anne Donavan Conor knew was his daughter. She was the main reason I’d come. I wanted to get something straight in my mind about her. ‘She’s never been in London,’ he told me. ‘She’s below in the cottage, if you want to have a word with her, but she’ll tell you the same – she’s the only one by that name round here.’

  Helpful sort of a brother. Strange standing talking to him without him knowing who I was.

  Anne didn’t know me either when I put the same bullshit to her. I was three feet away from her but I could’ve been the Man in the Iron Mask for all she knew. And yet I was her uncle. Funny how people’s perception of each other based on the information they hold rules out what would otherwise form instant recognition of a fellow family member. That old saying ‘He comes from a close family’ applies only if they know who you are.

  ‘Everything is relative,’ a guy once said to me. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. I was only ten. ‘Except for you,’ he said. ‘You’re not relative. Not even to your relatives. No one gives two fucks about you, and I can do with you whatever I like.’

  That’s me – not relative. What I do doesn’t count. Who gives a fuck?

  ‘Sorry I can’t help you,’ Anne said.

  She was helping me just by standing there with no wedding ring on her finger and being old enough to have a baby (seventeen, I’d say – three years younger than me). I’d need someone to say he’d delivered it of course. I had it in mind to make Anne the mother of Mary Winters’ baby. Well, every child needs a mother. Call it the sentimentalist in me. Like everything else, it’s all a question of getting the paperwork right.

  ‘I wonder if it’s worth trying the local doctor,’ I bullshitted on. ‘He might know the Anne Donavan I’m looking for.’

  I knew there wasn’t another one. But I double-check every detail.

  She didn’t look as if he’d hold out much hope. Tight-knit farming communities, where everybody knows everybody else, y’see. She gave me directions to the guy who’d delivered me – Doctor Skeffington.

  ‘He’s the only
doctor round here,’ she said. ‘He sits from four till six.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I didn’t go in to see him – the medical query I had in mind was best handled outside of normal visiting hours.

  So I watched until he came out of his surgery and drove away in a Ford Cortina. New one, by the look of it. He was being called out. To a farm, as it happened, along a country lane wide enough for only one vehicle. Nice and quiet.

  I reversed my car into the lane and sat trying to pick a few winners for the next day’s meeting until I saw his headlights coming back on and his car pulling out of the farmyard. Then it was just a case of opening the bonnet and waiting till he pulled up behind me. Considerate sort: he switched off his main beam so it wouldn’t blind me, got out and came round to where I was leaning over the engine looking browned off. Tall, skinny guy he was in a tweed suit, with a white moustache and hardly any hair.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ I said. ‘Just conked out.’ A new Merc, it was. ‘You’d think they’d be more reliable. Can’t depend on anything these days.’

  ‘Sure now, these things happen,’ he said. ‘And usually on a night like this.’ He buttoned up his car coat.

  Seemed pleasant enough. I always liked that about country people. They’re so easy-going. Break down in the city and the cunts are ready to beat you out of the road.

  ‘You’re not going back towards the village?’ I asked him.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Any chance of a lift?’

  ‘Jump in.’

  ‘Great. I better not leave her blocking the road.’

  He gave me a shove. Didn’t take much. I’d chosen the brow of a hill, to save our backs, y’know. Just a matter of freewheeling her down onto the main road and in tight to the hedge then getting into his passenger seat.

  ‘Now,’ I said and came out with some tripe, letting on to thank him.